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| Lawrence Graham is a London law firm providing legal services to UK and international companies, financial institutions and private clients. They have over 250 lawyers who are active in the business areas of commercial property, company and commercial litigation, and tax and private capital work. |
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| The two main legal directories, "Legal 500" and "Chambers", both list Lawrence Graham as a leading firm in private client practice. Focusing on high net-worth individuals, they offer a Personal, partner-led service. They are especially strong internationally in offshore and institutional private client work, particularly in the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Far East. |
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| Whilst many other City practices wind down their services to individuals, however wealthy, Lawrence Graham continues to expand. Judged by any criteria, but particularly the quality of clients and the caliber of partners and staff, they are a leading firm in this area. |
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| Until last year Lawrence Graham's 500 users were all using CRT monitors. However, as these needed to be replaced, Mike Burton, IT Manager, started to look into purchasing 15" flat panels as they moved in line, price wise, with CRT monitors. The first batch of flat panels purchased were from the same manufacturer as the CRTs. |
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| These initial panels did not prove to be as reliable as hoped. The high failure rates as well as poor quality made Mike question this manufacturer's panel. Regular failures prompted Lawrence Graham to look at other panels. |
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 By now Mike and his team were more experienced and aware of what to look for in a flat panel, so a variety of panels were appraised. The first requirement was reliability. It was only when the EIZO panel was introduced, that the limitations of the past panels, as well as the other displays being evaluated, become clear. Mike had heard of EIZO but his original perception was "high end solutions and price prohibitive". However, once the latest EIZO flat panels had been evaluated, Mike believed they were "a breath of fresh air". |
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Why EIZO LCDs?
"Some lawyers prefer to have a lower resolution such as 800 x 600 so they can view the text more comfortably", stated Mike. But with the native resolution of 15" flat panels being 1024 x 768, why was EIZO the chosen panel? "Quite simply when running all the panels we were comparing at the non-native resolution of 800 x 600, the EIZO quality immediately made the others pale into insignificance. The blurring on the other panels was a nightmare". |
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| Many users will be using the native resolution of 1024 x 768 as it enables a lot more information to be viewed on screen in applications such as document management, the finance system and many law firm websites. "When a lawyer can see more information on the screen they are then able to make quicker decisions. This in the long run makes the lawyers more productive, saves time and ultimately money for the firm as well as our clients. It is a win-win situation", explains Mike. |
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 Cost Savings in all Areas
Any law firm will tell you that there is a lot of paper involved in day-to-day operations. With 100,000 sheets of paper used a month and 1250 documents a day being produced presently, a move towards a more paper efficient office would reduce costs! Money could also be saved on consumables such as toner cartridges as well as extending the life and reducing the maintenance costs of printers. High quality screens enable editing to be performed on screen. "A typical 200 page document may go back and forth 10 or 12 times on email before it has been signed off. If each amendment had to be printed every time, it would be a lot of ink and paper" explains Mike. "Editing on screen saves time and means that less paper is used, less paper means more desk space". |
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| With space in mind, Mike observed that CRT monitors are much larger than flat panels. "With CRTs you get a lot less desk space which meant that the screen was much closer to the user. Close proximity to the screen can cause uncomfortable brightness and the image to become garish", said Mike. "With flat panels there is more desk space. We are also benefiting from having no glare on the screen from the overhead lights or the windows". |
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LCD Screens Matching Budgets and Needs
"Cost has been one of the main drivers for the project. Initial costs as well as total cost of ownership must be considered. The savings we can generate are clear when we purchase EIZO flat panels. Users like the fact they can use different resolutions and still have the best quality image on their screen. With the digital connections on the EIZO panels we can be confident that we are also future proofing", stated Mike Burton. Was there any opposition to EIZO being the chosen LCD panel? "Here, our IT department's decisions are trusted as long as we operate within budget", explained Mike. "To show the difference in the quality from EIZO, we took the IT Director's flat panel, which was one of the original panels bought, then exchanged it for an EIZO. When we tried to give him his own one back he soon saw the difference!" |
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No EIZO = Higher Costs
So what if Lawrence Graham had not selected EIZO? "We would have taken longer to adopt the new technology and gone back to buying the lowest priced CRTs. This would have then meant an overall higher cost of ownership. We were let down by the other flat panels too much in the past to buy any more" said Mike. |
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 Learning Curve
"This purchasing process has taught me that when looking to buy flat panels, you need to delve more into the technology and not just listen to what other people tell you. Decisions should be based on what you actually need not on what you are told. Having a direct relationship with EIZO, in partnership with our chosen reseller, helps, as we have been able to get the correct information. I would strongly advise anyone looking to purchase flat panels that they should look at the flat panel in real life, and perform a comparison test, do not simply trust the literature - there is no substitute for comparing EIZO against other flat panels to see the difference", explained Mike. |
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What the Future Holds
"We haven't experienced a single EIZO failure. We are buying flat panels as and when the CRTs need replacing. At the moment the secretariat as well as the fee-earners are using EIZO flat panels, where the higher quality screens are most needed. Within three years the entire office will be using flat panels and those flat panels will be EIZO without a doubt", said Mike. |
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| - With Special Thanks to Mike Burton for his contribution. |
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