Interview with Brendan Carroll, Director, PCI Group, and Lorna Groarke, Partner/Solicitor at Groarke & Partners

Think of the most urgent need for a printer and I’m guessing it will still fall short of the scenario described by Lorna Groarke, the Solicitor who runs the Longford legal firm Groarke & Partners.  She describes facing the judge and jury in a courtroom when one of her team turns up with newly printed out evidence that is crucial to the case;

“It doesn’t happen often, but it can happen..” says Lorna. “We do a lot of litigation work and are constantly handing documents to the judge and presenting them to the witness box. They could be printing something back in the office while I’m up and speaking in court.”

PCI is the firm’s managed print service provider. This has turned into a long-standing relationship that we had to earn. “Working with them for nearly a decade has served as a constant reminder of our responsibility to keep machines up and running, no matter what.” says PCI Director Brendan Carroll. “It make us better at our jobs.”

The legal practice was an unlikely convert to a managed print service, according to Lorna, who described her firm as operating in the “dark ages” as far as technology was concerned. It all changed when they decided it was time to streamline their paper-based processes and invest in a case-management system tailored to the legal profession. To optimise the new solution, the vendor they went with thought they should upgrade their printers too and recommended PCI as a leading managed print service provider.

Out of the Dark Ages

Lorna takes up the story. “We’re kind of old school around here, but when we went ‘state-of-the-art’ with the case management system, we decided to do everything in the one go and integrated the system with new printers too,” she explains.

The PCI technicians kitted them out with two Oki multifunction devices, three smaller colour printers and a mono desktop model for Lorna’s office. It sounds like a lot, but printers in this medium-sized practice are typically running all day, every day. Like many businesses that have undergone some sort of digital transformation, it has streamlined - but hasn’t diminished - the need for print and hard copy documents.

Groarke & Partners keep two copies of every case – one digital, one paper – with the two Okis providing a scanning function as well as print, archiving documents directly into the Case Management System.  The huge workloads are a by-product of the legal profession. In the run up to a court appearance around a draft settlement agreement, for example, there could be tweaks and changes right up until the last hour.

“The document could be revised five or six times before a final version is agreed. And that’s just one case,” says Brendan. “So we knew that volume was going to be a big requirement, along with colour, quality and the option of A3.”

Photographic Evidence

Colour is particularly important when photographs are used as evidence, while A3 is used for printing out maps. One other requirement was that the printers could handle judicature paper, the heavy legal stationary favoured by courts. After that, the big priority was machine reliability.   

The risk of a broken printer compromising a court appearance is too disastrous to contemplate for Groarke & Partners. “That’s why we have a lot printers, to avoid every eventuality,” says Lorna. “Even in the unlikely event that every printer were to go down, I know that someone from PCI would be here at speed to sort it out. They prioritise their customers' service needs and they like to be reliable.”

Lorna is a very discerning customer so we value her feedback here at PCI. “We are delighted to be dealing with PCI,” she says. “Going the extra yard is no problem for them. They will always get us up and running again in the shortest possible timeframe. I like having them on our team.”