Tend Legal modernises its IT infrastructure and achieves Law Society compliance with Optimyze

The challenge

Ageing infrastructure, slow support, and a Law Society inspection looming

Tend Legal had grown to 22 fee earners across two offices, but their IT environment hadn't kept pace. The firm was running on an on-premise server that was approaching end-of-life, using a shared drive structure with no access controls, and receiving IT support from a generalist provider whose average response time was measured in days rather than hours.

An upcoming Law Society inspection had prompted Tend Legal's compliance partner to review the firm's information security practices — and the findings were concerning. There was no formal information security policy, no evidence of staff security training, and the backup system hadn't been tested in over two years.

• End-of-life on-premise server with untested backup system
• No access controls — all staff could access all matter files
• Average IT support response time of 2+ business days
• No information security policy or staff training programme
• Law Society inspection flagged compliance gaps

The solution

A modern, compliant, fully supported legal IT environment delivered in eight weeks

Optimyze began with an urgent infrastructure assessment and compliance gap analysis, prioritising the risks that would be visible to the Law Society inspector. A migration plan was developed to move Tend Legal's entire environment to Microsoft 365 and SharePoint — with proper role-based access controls, matter-level permissions, and a complete audit trail.

The migration was completed over eight weeks with zero data loss and minimal disruption to fee earners. Information security policies were written and approved by the partners, staff received phishing awareness training, and a tested backup and disaster recovery process was established and documented for the Law Society inspection.

• Microsoft 365 migration with SharePoint for matter file management
• Role-based access controls restricting matter files to assigned fee earners
• LEAP practice management system infrastructure migration and support
• SentinelOne endpoint protection across all firm devices
• Immutable Microsoft 365 backup with tested restore process
• Information security policy suite written and approved by partners
• Staff phishing awareness training with simulated phishing campaigns
• Ongoing managed IT support with 2-hour response SLA

The results

A Law Society-ready, fully supported modern legal IT environment