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Should Law Firms Run Their Own Mail Servers?

This article first ran as a post on the TechnoLawyer email list.

Whether law firms should run their own mail server or outsource it to an ISP is a decision that must be made carefully. With e-mail such a mission-critical part of the business of law, chosing the wrong solution can severely impact how a practice runs. There is no one size fits all answer to this question.

Before I offer my $0.02, I should mention I have a pretty unique perspective on this issue. I practiced law for about two and a half years,
then moved into the IT field. I currently work as a field systems engineer for a large ISP, which among other things, offers managed email solutions.

Since e-mail is so critical to how law is currently practiced, you must ensure that your mail server is available as close to 100% of the time as possible. Whether or not you'll be able to maintain a high enough level of availability depends on a number of factors, including:

The kind of connection your office has to the Internet. E.g., T1 lines offer high reliability, but at a price. Cable modems and DSL lines offer less reliability, but lower cost.

What kind of backup connection you have to the Internet, if any. While most offices with T1 lines can get away with no other form of high speed Internet access, DSL lines and cable modems are "best effort" technology on the part of the ISP, and overall are not nearly as reliable as a T1. If you depend on DSL or cable, you should have some kind of backup, lest Mr. Murphy take down your Internet access at the most innopportune time possible.

Your staff's knowledge. Mail servers don't just run themselves. They need to be backed up, software patches applied, and logs periodically checked. Do you have someone on your staff who's qualified? And do they have the time to do it right? Alternately, do you have a good consultant who can respond in a timely manner to your calls for help?

Assuming you go for an outsourced solution, what kind of service level agreement (SLA) does the ISP offer? 99% uptime? 99.999% uptime? The difference between the two doesn't sound like much, but 99% uptime is roughly equivalent to four days downtime each year, while "five nines" uptime is equivalent to downtime measured in minutes per year.

Again, assuming you go with an outsourced solution, what kind of tech support do they offer? Is it 24x7x365? Can you get references as to how good they are?

Finally, if outsourced, where will the mail server be located -- in your office or in the ISP's data center? If it's in your office then it is subject to the vagaries of your Internet connection. If it's in a data center it's more likely to have a reliable, always-on, high speed redundant pipe to the Internet.

Based on what I've seen working for an ISP, firms unable or unwilling to afford at least a T1 connection should *not* host a mail server onsite. Such firms are mostly likely to be using either a dialup, cable modem, or DSL connection to the Internet. These connections do not offer the level of reliability that I would want to trust my mission critical application to, unless I had a backup. E.g., if a firm is located in an area where it can get both DSL and cable, then hosting its mail server onsite is more viable.

Likewise, smaller firms unable to afford a T1 may not have the IT staffing resources required to properly manage a mail server. If they have a good IT consultant with a short response time, this could mitigate the staffing issue.

For firms such as I've discussed so far, the best solution is to have a mail server hosted offsite by an ISP or a Web hosting company. That way, should the office's main Internet connection go down, its employees can still reach their e-mail via a backup such as dialup. Moreoever, when hosted offsite in such a manner, it's easy to choose a service provider with a serious datacenter with redundant connections to the Internet backbone, for maximum reliability. You'll probably still need someone with a bit of technical savvy to create and remove email accounts as needed, although some providers can do this for you.

Larger firms or those with the resources to manage a mail server in-house on a T1 (or better) connection can benefit from running their own mail server. Doing so offers a greater degree of control, and allows you to run mail servers that are also groupware applications, e.g., Lotus Domino and Notes. Running one's own mail server may also facilitate mail content filtering, spam control, and antivirus scanning.

There are also mail servers available which you can host in your office, but use your Internet connection, whether it be dialup, cable, DSL or T1, to poll a mail server at your ISP, download your mail, then distribute it locally. The only advantages I see in such products are the ability to implement server-level filtering, and for providing a central repository for mail if you use the IMAP protocol on your clients. For most firms who can't afford a T1 line, these servers don't really offer any major advantages, while requiring the administration of a server.

In summary, I suggest that any firm which is considering the issue of whether to run its own mail server or outsource it in some fashion to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each option.