Wright Johnson & Mackenzie (WJM)

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The Company

WJM is Scotland's largest independent firm of solicitors, with six offices across Scotland and more than 250 employees. The firm provides expert legal advice to both individuals and businesses.

Over the last five years, WJM has grown substantially through organic growth and strategic acquisitions. It has also undergone significant transformational change, including integrating with one of the UK's largest law firms, Irwin Mitchell, which employs more than 3,000 people across 21 offices throughout the UK.

The Partnership

Working closely with the IT Director and wider IT team, KubeNet delivers key technologies, complex infrastructure, and consultancy services to WJM, continually enhancing the technology stack.

The initial project involved adopting WJM's full WLR estate and replacing its WAN with a 1Gb infrastructure, including fully managed, leading-edge Cisco equipment. Our firewall services provide secure network access via Cisco AnyConnect, enabling WJM to utilise its own MFA solution for authentication.

The network delivers inter-site VRF routing through the KubeNet core network, alongside resilient 5G connectivity and site-to-site VPNs, ensuring reliable communication between locations.

Other essential services include:

• 24/7 on call service including rapid deployment to their offices.

• WJM utilises infrastructure hosted within our datacentre colocation platform, delivering dedicated connectivity, virtualised compute resources, and managed backup solutions to support operational resilience and disaster recovery requirements.

• 24/7/365 Network & Meraki AP monitoring via Logic Monitor.

• Retirement of their full WLR estate and novation to fully managed MS Teams calling. Subscription services.

• Full Microsoft SKU estate.

• AI technologies.

• Network and infrastructure consultancy and support.

• During peak periods including holiday cover - Ad-hoc IT support.

• Procurement of network & AP kit including build, configuration and deployment.

• Collaborating on Security postures.

• Professional services.

M&A Support

Over the last five years, WJM has embarked on an M&A strategy, acquiring mid-market Scottish law firms. Due to the sensitive nature of these acquisitions, KubeNet has operated under strict professional practices to ensure every project was delivered securely and efficiently.

Inherited IT assets and technical debt can present significant challenges during the critical first 100 days of any acquisition. Working closely with the IT Director, KubeNet reviewed the inherited infrastructure and established a clear plan to adopt, replace, or, where appropriate, migrate the infrastructure and essential technology services.

As part of the largest acquisition, we delivered the managed connectivity required to connect the business to the WJM network and novated all users onto the Microsoft stack, including Microsoft Teams Calling, ahead of the target date. To minimise risk for both WJM and the acquired business, KubeNet engineers were available on call 24/7 to provide support across the technology stack, including the SharePoint integration, should it have been required.

Aside from a small number of vendor-related challenges, all migrations were completed successfully and in line with the project plan, ensuring new users were onboarded smoothly and with minimal disruption.

The Results

Delivered a secure, resilient and scalable network infrastructure across WJM's offices, providing the foundation to support continued business growth, improve connectivity between locations and accommodate future expansion with confidence.

We have a first-hand reference point when discussing SOC services with prospects and clients. Successfully modernised WJM's communications platform by retiring legacy voice services and migrating users to Microsoft Teams Calling. This provided a flexible, cloud-based telephony solution that enhances collaboration, supports hybrid working and simplifies the management of business communications.

Enabled seamless technology integration throughout WJM's acquisition strategy, working closely with the internal IT team to assess inherited infrastructure, migrate critical services and onboard new users within demanding project timescales, while minimising disruption to day-to-day operations.

Strengthened business resilience through proactive managed services, including 24/7 network monitoring, rapid response support, managed infrastructure and strategic consultancy. This collaborative approach has helped ensure high service availability, reduce operational risk and provide WJM with a trusted technology partner for over a decade.

Conclusion

The WJM infrastructure is complex due to the nature and size of the business. By collaborating closely with the IT Director, who is both experienced and visionary, and by using shared knowledge, WJM and KubeNet have built quantifiable metrics across system uptime, engineer response times, cost savings, and successful migrations.

The partnership allows both companies to build on lessons learned and agree the best technology roadmap that is scalable, secure, and resilient.

The growth WJM has experienced over the last five years highlights the importance of working together with our clients to achieve a common goal in an ever-changing technology landscape.

This collaborative approach continues to support long-term success while ensuring the technology strategy evolves alongside the needs of the business.