Goulston & Storrs Enhances Flexibility and Streamlines Operations with Zoom

For the teams at Goulston & Storrs, choosing Zoom’s secure and frictionless platform was a “no-brainer.”

Goulston & Storrs, a law firm headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, has been serving clients in the United States for the past 120 years. The firm provides legal services around real estate, private client, corporate, and litigation practices, and serves a wide range of industries such as real estate development, hospitality, technology, and more. 

Providing pro bono services for organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Goulston & Storrs has a long history of supporting civil rights causes, as well as international justice efforts. The Goulston & Storrs team provides an effective, full-service experience for a diverse client base but was needing a communications provider that could keep pace.

The need for dynamic, flexible communications solutions

Goulston & Storrs frequently leverages video meetings to engage and collaborate with its clients. However, its legacy solution lacked a modern user experience, tasking the firm with finding a way to enable seamless client collaboration. 

“The majority of our video conferencing happens in our meeting rooms, and we were using older codecs, which were expensive and difficult to maintain,” said Gary Zaino, Director of IT Operations at Goulston & Storrs. “It was also proprietary technology, which made it difficult to connect with clients and other stakeholders that were using different solutions.” 

Goulston & Storrs’ legacy phone provider also couldn’t provide the critical functionalities that its legal teams needed. “Our cloud phone provider didn’t seem like it was catering to law firms and the functionalities they rely on,” Gary said. “Things like line delegation and presence were features that we needed because assistants rely on those to seamlessly transfer phone calls or take messages.”

Zoom was a ‘no-brainer’

After evaluating leading video meeting solutions, Goulston & Storrs moved to Zoom just a few months before the pandemic. This switch reduced management costs and created a more frictionless user experience, one they decided to carry over to their voice communications and conference room spaces.

Zoom Phone

After the successful implementation of Zoom Meetings and its positive impact on their communications, the team at Goulston & Storrs evaluated Zoom Phone as part of their plan to implement a more dynamic and seamless cloud phone solution. 

“Zoom was already huge at the firm, which made the transition to Zoom Phone much easier,” Gary said. “When we launched phone, it just showed up in the Zoom client. And the training load was very light because people were already so familiar with the Zoom platform.”

Zoom Rooms

Goulston & Storrs enlisted the help of their long-time integration partner, Integrated Media Technologies, Inc. (IMT), to support the migration from their legacy solution to Zoom. As a Zoom solutions provider, IMT is certified for Zoom Rooms implementation and helped make the transition to Zoom seamless for Goulston & Storrs. IMT provided design, build, AV integration, and support services for Goulston’s offices in New York, Boston, and Washington D.C. By leveraging Zoom from the top down, Goulston & Storrs was able to transition to a hybrid environment, enabling business continuity and high user adoption. IMT also helped Goulston standardize all their Zoom Rooms on Neat hardware.

Enhancing the user experience with Zoom

With Zoom Phone, Goulston & Storrs enjoyed enhanced flexibility with the phone solution, as employees can rely on a consistent, frictionless experience regardless of what device they are on. 

“We have employees using Zoom Phone on desk phones, desktop clients, and the Zoom mobile app, as well,” Gary said. “Our teams, including myself, often elevate a Zoom Phone call to a Zoom Meeting or transfer a Zoom Meeting to a phone call, as well. That flexibility has been great for us.” 

The teams at Goulston & Storrs frequently leverage Zoom Team Chat — included at no additional cost with every Zoom license — for secure, fast, and efficient exchanges, helping them streamline everyday operations.

“Zoom Team Chat is my preferred medium because it doesn’t clutter up my inbox, I can tag people, and it’s real-time,” Gary said. “We use Zoom Team Chat in IT all day, every day, so we can address those IT issues more quickly. We also tweaked our settings so our chat messages automatically delete after seven days, which helps us keep things secure.” 

Goulston & Storrs also implemented Zoom Webinars, using the solution to host a wide range of both internal and external events. 

“Our trainers and our business development group are heavily leveraging the webinar functionality of Zoom in terms of marketing and training events,” Gary said.

The future of Zoom at Goulston & Storrs

As Goulston & Storrs continues to leverage Zoom to enhance collaboration and communication, Gary and his teams are excited about what the future holds. 

“One of my favorite things about Zoom is the pace at which new features come out,” Gary said. “The new whiteboard feature is really interesting, and we’ve had people reaching out to us about it because they’re really excited.”