Nicholsons Solicitors – MSP Selection & Trusted Advisor

Project type: MSP Selection & Trusted Advisor

Nicholsons Solicitors LLP engaged Baskerville Drummond following the departure of their in house IT Manager.

The firm was operating ageing on premises infrastructure and a heavily overstretched Remote Desktop environment, alongside concerns about the robustness of its business continuity arrangements.

User frustration, performance issues, and uncertainty around MSP capability and cloud strategy were creating increasing operational and business risk.

At the point of engagement, the firm had received multiple proposals from its MSP and required independent validation as to whether these represented appropriate, proportionate, and low risk responses to the challenges identified.

The Approach

Baskerville Drummond undertook a targeted technical and operational review to assess risk exposure, validate MSP proposals, and establish a clear, prioritised remediation roadmap. The review was specifically designed to support informed decision making before any irreversible commitments to hosting models or supplier changes were made.

Our role combined technical assurance with independent advisory support, ensuring recommendations were evidence based, commercially grounded, and aligned to the firm’s operational priorities and risk appetite.

Key findings

The review identified several critical issues requiring urgent attention:

Business continuity risk – While backups were in place, there was no effective or tested disaster recovery capability, exposing the firm to a material risk of prolonged downtime and potential data loss.
Remote Desktop under resourcing – The Remote Desktop environment was significantly under provisioned and poorly optimised, resulting in persistent performance issues and reduced staff productivity.
Ageing and fragile infrastructure – Core systems and servers were approaching end of life, increasing the likelihood of failure, constraining vendor supportability, and limiting future technology options.
MSP maturity and governance gaps – The MSP engagement was predominantly reactive, with limited proactive planning, absence of structured governance, and insufficient reporting — reducing transparency and limiting informed strategic decision making.

About Nicholsons

Nicholsons Solicitors is unique for the specialist commercial legal services it provides to businesses throughout Norwich and the Lowestoft and Waveney Valley area. As well as acting for companies, and all kinds of owner-managed businesses the firm provides a full range of legal advice for individuals including family law, residential conveyancing and tax planning.

The firm consistently offers a range of services more commonly associated with larger law firms but combines this with a personable and practical approach. In particular clients value the availability and direct contact they have with the person responsible for their matter.

In addition to the full range of services offered by their own team, Nicholsons is a member of LawNet a national network of over 70 quality assured law firms throughout the UK.

Our recommendations

Rather than pursuing immediate wholesale change, we recommended a staged, risk led remediation strategy designed to stabilise the environment while preserving flexibility:

Stabilise resilience – Implement a robust and tested business continuity and disaster recovery solution to address immediate risk exposure.
Reduce reliance on Remote Desktop – Reconfigure user environments to enable local execution where appropriate, alleviating pressure on central infrastructure and improving user experience.
De risk supplier decisions – Use tightly scoped Statements of Work to assess and evidence MSP capability before committing to longer term contractual arrangements.
Introduce structured governance – Establish clear service governance, including reporting, change control, and accountability frameworks, to support effective MSP oversight and future supplier selection.

The Outcome

Nicholsons gained a clear, evidence based understanding of their risk position, immediate priorities, and the capabilities required from a future MSP. Core services were stabilised, user experience improved, and the firm was able to progress MSP evaluation and selection from a position of control rather than urgency. Baskerville Drummond provided independent assurance throughout, enabling confident, low risk decision making at a critical stage in the firm’s technology lifecycle.

“We achieved the desired outcomes in the timescale we hoped. There is no ‘fluff’ or trying to generate additional consultancy for the sake of fees. It felt like the approach was about focussing on what was best for us as clients at each point.”

Nicholsons Solicitors