MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — (Marketwire) — 03/06/13 — (JWS), a 60-partner commercial law firm that advises leading Australian and international companies, is taking advantage of the latest Cisco® (NASDAQ: CSCO) video and collaboration technology to further enhance its superior service to clients and enrich the professional development of its lawyers. JWS- information technology (IT) strategy supports the firm-s objective to represent major corporations in high-value transactions and important advisory, dispute resolution and regulatory assignments.
“Johnson Winter & Slattery has a reputation for delivering high-quality specialist legal services. With Cisco video and collaboration technology, our lawyers can now take building and sharing commercial and technical experience and expertise to a new level that reflects the rapid pace of change and increasing complexity in the way clients engage with lawyers domestically and internationally,” said Ross Forgione, chief information officer of Johnson Winter & Slattery.
Johnson Winter & Slattery partnered with Cisco and Telstra iVision to design and deploy Cisco WebEx®, Cisco Jabber, Cisco TelePresence® and elements of Cisco Show and Share® on a multi-media aware intelligent network to achieve the following client and legal team benefits:
Cisco TelePresence helps increase client-interface frequency, create longstanding business relationships with clients, and greatly simplify tapping into the deep experience of senior lawyers and partners irrespective of geographic location. The realistic face-to-face experience Cisco video technology creates also helps facilitate the discussion and development of timely commercial solutions for particularly complex legal assignments.
A critical factor to JWS- success is its on-going commitment to the retention and development of its talented lawyers. The high-quality video conferencing technology, called Cisco TelePresence, has enhanced the experience of JWS- professional development sessions. Anecdotal feedback from participating lawyers highlight that the sessions are more interactive and engaging with the addition of rich media content. As these sessions are also recorded and archived using Cisco Show and Share, they are more readily available to all staff in the firm and to lawyers away from the office on secondment or maternity leave. The feedback has been that viewing the archived sessions is an efficient method for quickly building knowledge on the latest legal changes. The firm delivers around two technical development sessions a week, and these are available to all practitioners.
JWS also has a strong clerkship program that involves law students gaining experience working with senior lawyers across all practice areas to develop a broad a base of experience early in their legal careers. In November 2012, Cisco TelePresence was used in the on-boarding and training of JWS- summer clerks. Summer clerks across the firm participated in a month-s induction program consisting of various interactive workshops. The use of telepresence provided a realistic snapshot of the cross-state, cross-practice area collaboration required of lawyers at JWS.
“As competition intensifies for top talent, attraction and retention is key. JWS has always been a strongly collaborative organisation, and now with the latest video and collaboration technology from Cisco we continue to build, engage and integrate our Gen Y talent into the work and culture of JWS,” said Robyn Howard, professional development manager at JWS.
Beyond the career and professional development of its lawyers, JWS has also used its video technology investment to host client education sessions and virtual conferences on a range of topics. Client feedback has been very positive.
With the introduction of Cisco Jabber to JWS, the already strong communication and collaboration between cross-functional teams increased with the integration of presence, instant messaging, voice, video, voice messaging, desktop sharing and conferencing from a single easy-to-use interface. With the freedom to be productive from anywhere, on any device with Cisco Jabber, JWS- lawyers can find the right colleague, see if they are available, and collaborate using their preferred method of collaboration. With its compelling face-to-face experience, Cisco TelePresence also helps accelerate decision-making and expedites communication by allowing participants to observe facial expressions and nonverbal cues, thus increasing participation and deeper engagement in discussions.
“In today-s increasingly more mobile, social, visual and virtual workplace, there is a new collaboration imperative. With its use of innovative Cisco technology, Johnson Winter & Slattery is embracing the full spectrum of a highly productive and collaborative workforce and getting the best possible result for its clients and gaining a significant competitive advantage as well,” said Peter Hughes, director of Collaboration for Cisco Australia and New Zealand.
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Linda Horiuchi
Cisco
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