Alexander Dubose Jones & Townsend, LLP

Making the Case for Better Data Protection

Customer Challenge:
Protecting its critical client data from loss.

“The tape backups failed on several occasions, meaning
that we had to recreate critical client data. LiveVault on the
other hand guarantees the recovery of data, taking a huge
burden off my shoulders.”
Vicki McArthur, Alexander Dubose Jones & Townsend, LLP

Quality Service Depends On Continuous Data Protection
The mission of any law firm is to provide its clients with the highest quality legal services. For Alexander Dubose Jones & Townsend (ADJT), an appellate law firm with offices in Houston and Austin, Texas, this means going above and beyond in terms of client service. ADJT argues cases in state and federal appellate courts, including the Texas Supreme Court. To best serve its clients, the firm maintains a collaborative law environment, so that clients receive the benefits of each lawyer’s expertise. All lawyers review each brief that is filed and no appellate oral argument is presented without at least one moot court session.

Keeping in line with its philosophy of stellar client service, ADJT has invested heavily in computer technology to minimize the costs of legal research and record review. The firm is building a searchable, indexed brief bank to speed up the process of retrieving briefs. With this increased dependence on electronic data, ADJT needs to do all it can to protect its critical client information.

“It would be a real challenge for our firm if our server crashed while we were preparing a brief,” says Vicki McArthur, office manager of ADJT. “Tape-based backup only allows for restoration of a document from the last time the previous backup was done—usually the night before. We needed a solution that would enable continuous data protection so that we could restore all of our data in the event of a disaster.”

Data Protection Through a Trusted Vendor
When ADJT was formed in 2003, one of the first things McArthur did was arrange for data protection. She had previous experience with the LiveVault Online Backup and Recovery™ service, and found the service provided a high level of protection and was incredibly easy to use. McArthur was so pleased with her experience with LiveVault that she decided to purchase it again, through U.S. Data Trust, a LiveVault reseller.

“I used LiveVault at a previous law firm after encountering numerous problems with tape-based backup,” says McArthur. “The tape backups failed on several occasions, meaning that we had to recreate critical client data. LiveVault on the other hand guarantees the recovery of data, taking a huge burden off my shoulders.”

LiveVault automatically protects ADJT’s data by continuously backing it up via an Internet connection and storing it in a secure offsite facility. The data is then immediately available for recovery in the event of a server crash, virus, human error or natural disaster.

LiveVault is designed for small and mid-sized businesses, like ADJT, whose servers reside outside of major data centers. These customers have primarily relied on in-house tape backups to keep their data safe. Industry analysts estimate nearly 50 percent of tape-based backups for these distributed servers fail to fully recover, which exposes these businesses to significant risk. Conversely, LiveVault guarantees recovery of all business-critical data and ensures that companies will return to the state of their business prior to a data-loss event.

Easy Restores at the Click of a Button
McArthur says that ADJT has performed restores already using LiveVault. “It’s so easy to restore a document with LiveVault. We just log on to the Web interface, find the file and click on it to start the download. A lengthy document can be restored in just minutes.”

ADJT is currently backing up data on two servers with LiveVault. This includes the firm’s Juris and Amicus legal databases, as well as client related documents, such as briefs.

Because LiveVault immediately gets all of ADJT’s data offsite, McArthur doesn’t need to worry about getting backup tapes offsite, or about a physical disaster destroying all of the firm’s data. McArthur says, “Houston has experienced instances of severe flooding over the past few years, so there’s a real possibility that we could lose all of our data if we stored it on tape and didn’t get it offsite."

"LiveVault provides us with a peace of mind, because our data is immediately taken off our premises and is kept in a secure facility.”

Superior Customer Service
In addition to the continuous offsite protection, McArthur says she also appreciates the customer service that LiveVault and U.S. Data Trust provide. “We had an incident once on the weekend where our connection to the LiveVault server was broken. Customer service noticed it right away and proactively contacted me at home. That enabled us to take immediate action on the problem.”

With LiveVault, ADJT is also able to restore data from a remote location. This means that if the firm loses its server data during off-hours, an employee can initiate the restore process from home immediately, rather than having to go into the office.

“LiveVault makes the whole backup and restore process incredibly easy,” says McArthur. “LiveVault assures me that when I do need to worry about restoring a file, it’s secure, quick and easy.”