Technology Review

Milstead & Associates, LLC is a law firm headquartered in Cherry Hill, NJ, providing superior legal services to the mortgage banking industry. The firm is committed to and has made a significant investment in information technology in order to improve work flow and process, centralize and secure client data and improve efficiency.  In general, the firm has implemented a best of breed, Microsoft network which is centralized and secured in their office headquarters. This document is being presented as a technical overview of the firm’s capabilities and endeavors to provide an understanding of Milstead & Associates’ commitment and continued investment in information systems.

Infrastructure

  • Milstead’s structured cabling system is primarily CAT5E throughout the suite.  CAT5E will deliver a switched 10/100 or gigabit signal directly to all servers and workstations which future-proofs the firm in order to enjoy the latest hardware and software technologies.

  • The firm uses Dell Power Connect 2724 Network Switches which support Gigabit per second data transfer rates.  These switches provide a non-shared, high speed environment which optimizes traffic and facilitates the transfer of large documents and large amounts of e-mail across the network.

  • The firewall is a Sonicwall TZ 210, a Unified Threat Management (UTM) appliance that offers high performance protection, redundancy capabilities and enterprise-class Anti-Spam integration, which improve the efficiency of the distributed enterprise. The firewall’s remote access capability combines UTM with IPSec and SSL VPN encryption technologies.  In addition, Sonicwall provides stateful packet inspection technology which examines not just the header information of a packet, but also the contents of the packet in order to filter more intelligently.  The built-in VPN component provides the added security sometime requested by clients when exchanging work product across the public Internet.

  • Milstead accesses the internet via a high speed, bonded T1, which combines two T1 lines to offers a total of 3.0 Mbps of internet bandwidth.  For redundancy and business continuity they have a business class DSL line as a backup should the T1 be unavailable.  Their internet service is provided by BandWave Systems, Inc.  The current download speed is 2.51 Mbps and upload speed is 2.89 Mbps. Latency was recorded at 27 milliseconds.

  • There are two uninterrupted powers supplies (UPS) to protect both network hardware and servers.  These devices offer the much needed time that is required for a controlled shutdown of servers in the event of a power outage.  The accompanying management software provides for an unattended shutdown of servers in the event of an extended power outage. The UPS devices also provide power conditioning with output voltage regulation and frequency regulation. This protects the network equipment against damage from electrical spikes.

Servers

There are two Dell servers onsite.  The first server, FS1, is a Dell PowerEdgeT610 with a total of 900 GB hard drive space and 4 GB of RAM memory.  The second server, MS1, used as the mail server, is a Dell PowerEdge1900 with 500 GB hard drive capacity and 12 GB of RAM memory.  These Dell servers offer many virtualization, system management, and ease of use capabilities needed to provide impressive power and overall energy efficiency.  There is plenty of redundancy built into these servers, including 4x300 and 3x250 GB RAID drives that divide and replicate data among multiple hard disk drives. A RAID array configuration is designed to increase data reliability and input/output  performance by allowing the operating system to see the multiple drives as one drive. There are also redundant power supplies and redundant network cards in the servers in the event of hardware failure.  This level of redundancy ensures seamless, continuous up-time in the event of server failure.

FS1 has a total storage capacity of 900 GB and currently has plenty of room for growth with 400 GB of free remaining capacity.  There are also open bays which will allow additional storage growth once the existing drives are full.  MS1 has a total storage capacity of 500 GB and also has ample growth capacity with 377 GB of free space remaining. 

  • The firm has Dell premium support contracts for the servers which guarantee a four hour response time.   For issues that cannot be resolved remotely, an authorized Dell Services representative will arrive within four hours after the call has been logged. Service is available around-the-clock every day, including all holidays. Dell Support Services returns the covered hardware to operational condition, repairing or replacing components or entire units as necessary. Coverage includes all required parts and materials and includes the cost of labor. This is a premium level of service for mid-sized businesses.

  • Both servers are running the latest Windows Server 2008 R2 as their operating system, which offers new virtualization tools, Web resources, management enhancements, improved file-transfer services and Windows 7 integration.  These enhancements can help save time and reduce costs compared to earlier releases.  Powerful tools such as Internet Information Services (IIS) version 7.5, updated Server Manager and Hyper-V platforms and Windows PowerShell version 2.0 combine to give greater control, increased efficiency and the ability to react more quickly when needed.
  • The firm is running the brand new Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 for their e-mail server environment.  It provides the most up to date functionality and offers new levels of reliability and performance with features that simplify administration and help protect communications.  Exchange 2010 includes an enhanced conversation view that automatically arranges messages into threads, regardless of their location in the inbox, and MailTips that inform users about details that could result in unnecessary or undeliverable e-mail messages.  New integrated, out-of-the-box e-mail archiving provides tools to preserve e-mail data without changing the user experience. A new retention policy framework allows the firm to define, deploy, and automate the expiry and archiving of e-mail data.  All of these new features give Milstead the state of the art functionality for a mission critical application.

Applications

  • Document Management

    • The firm uses Worldox Enterprise Document Manager, a leading, legal document management software package.  Worldox offers a two-tiered architecture which combines the best aspects of a failure-resistant distributed database, with the speed of access inherent in a centralized data repository.  This application satisfies the needs of a fast-paced law firm by providing critical functionality such as version control, document archiving, full-text indexing, content-based retrieval, network mirroring and workflow.  Most importantly it allows for the cataloging and tracking of documents using important profile information such as author, client/matter information, creation date and document history.  In addition, powerful security features allow the firm to assign secure access rights to all users, to a limited group of users or individuals.  The ability to quickly locate the firm’s intellectual assets and specific work product improves efficiency and reduces costs.

  • Microsoft Office Suite

    • Milstead uses Microsoft Office 2007 Suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and other firm applications.  Using standardized software such as Microsoft Office Suite, allows for greater compatibility with users outside of the firm and tighter integration with other legal specific software applications.  Microsoft Word 2007 offers many new features that have enhanced ease of use and creation time.  Some key features include: reduced file sizes, improved corrupt file recovery, less time needed for formatting, the ability to assemble documents from frequently used or predefined content and the ability to remove tracked changes, comments, and hidden text from documents.

  • Time and Billing and Case Management Software         

    •  The firm uses Tabs3 and PracticeMaster for its time and billing and case management software.

    • PracticeMaster is a legal specific database that has been customized for Milstead & Associates to manage comprehensive client file information for bankruptcy, foreclosure, loss mitigation and title curative work. The client file maintains general case information, critical dates and deadlines, and case notes which are date and time stamped.  This information is then used for running reports to track the status of the case and to ensure that deadlines are met in a timely manner.  The data is also used for auto-generating letters and other forms which eliminate the need for retyping or copying and pasting the same information over and over again.  This model ensures the accuracy and consistency of data on all output throughout the system. WorldDox documents that are linked to a specific client profile can be displayed and accessed from that client’s file in PracticeMaster – this reduces retrieval time.

    • Tabs3 is a popular time and billing package that offers a fast and accurate way to enter time, produce bills and analyze the firm’s financial position.

Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity

  • Offsite Data Backups

    • The firm currently uses a backup service called LiveVault, provided by Iron Mountain, a leading provider of records archiving and data protection.  LiveVault is an offsite backup system that runs continuously, backing up files in the background to LiveVault's offsite location.  Approximately every 15 minutes any changes that are made to the data are replicated to an offsite vault.  Backups are retained for 3 months.

    • As listed above, the servers are configured with RAID array technology.  This allows increased data reliability and data access performance by allowing the operating system to see the multiple drives as one drive. This level of fault tolerance, in addition to redundant server components, offers a high level of server up-time.

Desktops

  • Milstead’s standard desktop is a robust Dell Optiplex 780 with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 with VT 3.0GHz processor, 4 GB RAM memory, 160 GB Hard drive, 22 inch monitors  and 16X DVD+/-RW SATA Media storage device.  The workstations are running Windows XP Pro SP3 as the operating system.

 

PDA / Smart Phones

    • The firm utilizes all the capabilities of smartphone technology by offering Blackberries to key members of the firm.  These devices allow users to easily stay connected 24/7 with almost all the benefits of being in the office. Firm business can be conducted anytime, anywhere.