The Virtual Law Office: the Asp Model

• Publication year: 2002
• Pages: 57
• Citation: Vol. 31 No. 5 Pg. 57

31 Colo.Law. 57 Colorado Lawyer 2002.

2002, May, Pg. 57. The Virtual Law Office: The ASP Model

---

57

Vol. 31, No. 5, Pg. 57

The Colorado Lawyer
May 2002
Vol. 31, No. 5 [Page 57]

Departments
Technology and Law Practice
The Virtual Law Office: The ASP Model
by John C. Hanley, Susan H. Borgos

John C. Hanley, Denver, is Executive Director and Chief Operations Officer at Hoffman Reilly Pozner & Williamson LLP and is responsible for the firm's administrative business, and technology operations?(303) 893-6100. Susan H Borgos, a non-practicing attorney, is a systems engineer for North Star Business Systems?(303) 422-2229. She also is a (very small) minority shareholder of the ASP used by HRPW

This Department welcomes submissions of articles and article topics of a practical nature that do not advocate a position or promote a product. For more information about the Department guidelines or to submit an article or topic suggestion, please contact one of the following Department editors: Larry Smith, (303) 832-4643 or larry.smith@
lawofficeconsulting.com; Carrol Reeves, (303) 377-3580 or carroltmreeves@aol.com; Sue Borgos, (303) 422-2229 or sborgos@nsbs.com.

_________

Articles that appear in this Department do not necessarily reflect the official position of The Colorado Lawyer or the Colorado Bar Association, and the publication of these articles does not constitute any recommendation or endorsement of the goods or services mentioned therein.

There has been a lot of buzz lately about the application service provider ("ASP") model of software delivery?what it is, how it works, its cost-effectiveness, and its feasibility for law offices.1 Denver-based Hoffman Reilly Pozner & Williamson LLP ("HRPW") is one law firm already using this technology with great satisfaction. HRPW illustrates how some smaller to mid-sized law practices are perfect for implementing the ASP model. In HRPW's situation, the small size (fifteen attorneys and twenty support staff) and resource limitations of a newly founded practice, coupled with the costs of properly outfitting a computer system, made the ASP model attractive.

An ASP is a third party that provides one or more applications from an off-site server. The end user accesses an application or a suite of applications via the Internet or a private network. Off-site backup services, e-mail hosting, and legal research sites such as LexisNexis? and Westlaw® are common examples of single application ASPs.

Some ASPs offer one product; others offer entire suites. Some ASP products are purely Web-based,2 that is, they are accessed via a browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape. Some use "thin client" technology,3 where there is an off-site server and clients can use a bare-bones computer or a Winterm (essentially a "dumb" terminal) to access their applications. Citrix Metaframe and Microsoft Terminal Server are examples of this type of technology.

Many law firms already have a Citrix server, as part of their internal network, to allow attorneys to obtain remote access to applications and data. The applications run on the Citrix server, and only the screen refreshes (changes made to the document) are sent over the wire, usually via DSL4 or T1,5 which are high-speed transmission technologies. Citrix Metaframe, which runs on top of Microsoft Terminal Server, provides a robust solution that can allow up to fifteen average users per processor to access the network at one time, without losing much in the way of performance. Multiple servers can be added to the system, and Citrix will balance the load by seamlessly logging in new users to less utilized servers. ASPs will usually have groups of Citrix servers called "server farms." The end-user can access all of its data and applications from any server in the farm.

This article discusses why the ASP model was so attractive to HRPW and looks at the firm's considerations and concerns in arriving at its decision to use an ASP. HRPW's experience may give other firms an idea of where to start and what to look for when making such technology decisions.

Determining Needs

HRPW's main technology objective was to obtain the most...