Setup for a Law Firm

Question

Greetings:
I'm starting a new law firm and I would like to have a Mac environment. The only "software" that I will need is Quickbooks, Microsoft Office, and maybe Parallels. Here is the setup I am looking to purchase. I would appreciate any suggestions, comments, etc.
1) Server - Mac Mini maxed out with Snow Leopard Server;
2) Time Capsule and/or RAID card attached to the Server (we're in Florida and we get a lot of storms that pass through, so I have to mitigate the down-time as much as possible); and,
3) iMac workstations (maximum=10).
I'm not an IT professional, but I have been tasked to handle the IT setup for the new law firm and I have been using Macs for the past five years. I love the product and think it can work at our small, boutique law firm.
We will be hosting our website and email through a third-party company, so the Server will not be used for anything but calendaring with iCal, storing our clients' addresses and phone numbers in Address Book Server, and probably some iChat and Wiki pages. Most of our "law firm" software will be web based and I have already done research regarding compatibility. If there is anything else that you guys could think of, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks for your help and suggestions.

Answer 1

I run my 6-person firm off an Xserve and a bunch of iMacs. We also have an old Cube that functions as a fax server and employee timeclock.
On the Xserve, we have the OS on one drive, and the data on a mirrored RAID. Everything gets backed up onto an external firewire drive a couple times a day. There are 3 backup drives, and they get rotated once a week so that the most recent one is off-site. We also keep an off-site clone of the boot drive. It's all protected by a Zywall firewall (which also provides VPN service for the network) and a large APC UPS.
We also have a Dell server that runs some software that is only available on the PC side. We access it from the iMacs via Microsoft Remote Desktop and terminal services. We're considering the possibility of replacing this machine with Parallels Server when we upgrade to one of the new Intel Xserves.
The hardware was a tremendous investment for a small firm like ours, but except for one failed ADM (which we were able to replace under warranty with zero downtime and zero lost data) it has been rock solid in 4+ years of continuous operation.
The Server OS is a very different animal. Having been a true Mac fanatic for 15 years and having read Apple's own OS X Server Essentials from cover to cover, I thought I was ready to do everything myself. I was wrong. I picked my way through it, but it took the entirety of a long weekend to do it, and I ended up going back a few months later and starting over to correct some things I still hadn't gotten right. If you don't have server experience it might be worth hiring a consultant, at least for the purpose of getting you up and running. Whatever he charges will probably be less than the amount of billable time you'll probably lose trying to do it yourself.
I'd have a real hard time trusting my livelihood to a Mini. An Xserve may be overkill, but I'd seriously consider at least getting a Mac Pro--even a used or refurbished one if cost is an issue.
I don't have any personal experience with QuickBooks, although from the discussion on MacInTouch this week it sounds horrible. You may also want to read some of the posts about Address Book Server; I don't think it does what you think it will do. (I was certainly dismayed.)
I would encourage you to take a good look at FileMaker. It's fairly easy to learn, and we keep finding new ways to use it in our practice. (So far we have databases to: check conflicts; manage open and closed files; track incoming phone calls; index and store CLE materials; automate document assembly for probates, mechanic's liens, and collections; and index and store a library of contract clauses.)
Apple Remote Desktop is an essential tool for keeping everything running smoothly.
With so much happening electronically, Adobe Acrobat Pro is quickly becoming as indispensable as MS Word. If you hope to be "paperless," you'll probably also want Fujitsu ScanSnaps on every desk.
I've been watching the "cloud" services with some interest, but at this point I just can't bring myself to trust them. At this point, very few of them work by mirroring what you have stored locally, so I can't help but wonder how you get your data back when they fail.
Starting your own firm is certainly exciting. We all do things differently, of course, but I hope some of this is helpful to you. Good luck.