On Wednesday, 18th March, Nexian hosted the third session of the Legal Modern Workplace webinar series. Matt Newton was joined by Josh Foye (Pax8) and David Jackson, CTO of Doyle Clayton, to discuss why virtual desktop environments like Citrix have run their course for most law firms, and what a modern Microsoft 365-based alternative looks like in practice. Here are the key takeaways:
- Virtual desktops solved a real problem when they were introduced, enabling remote access and removing the need for on-premise infrastructure, but the compromises they create for users have become increasingly hard to justify.
- A fragmented user experience, rising support ticket volumes, and the difficulty of running modern applications like Teams inside a VDI environment are among the most common frustrations firms are dealing with today.
- The modern alternative is built around three core Microsoft technologies: Entra ID for identity management, Intune for device management, and Purview for data governance. Together, they replace the virtual desktop without sacrificing security.
- Moving to a browser-based application strategy is the key that unlocks this transition. The legal software decisions and the IT infrastructure decisions must be made together, not in isolation.
- For firms at a crossroads, the advice is practical: assess the shelf life of your current infrastructure, map your business-critical processes, and start planning earlier than you think you need to. The average migration journey is 12 months from first conversation to sign-off.
On Wednesday, 18th March, we hosted the third session of our Legal Modern Workplace webinar series, tackling a topic that resonates with a huge number of law firms across the UK: what do you do when the virtual desktop environment that has served you for years starts to create more problems than it solves?
We were joined by Josh Foye, a Microsoft specialist at Pax8, who works with IT providers to help organisations get the most from the Microsoft 365 stack; and David Jackson, CTO of Doyle Clayton, a circa 100-person employment law firm operating across London, Reading, and Bristol, who has lived this transition first-hand across more than 25 years in the legal sector.
Together, we traced the full arc of the virtual desktop story, why it made sense, where it started to fall short, what the alternative looks like, and how firms can begin making the move.
Where the frustrations started to build
The problems did not emerge overnight. They accumulated gradually, and by the time they became impossible to ignore, many firms had already invested heavily in their virtual desktop setup.
David described a familiar pattern. Because everything ran through Citrix, it became the catch-all explanation for any technical issue, whether it was actually Citrix-related or not. The result was a cycle of overcompensation: throwing more compute resource at the environment in an attempt to smooth out problems that were often caused by something else entirely.
"Citrix developed a bit of a name for itself in terms of being a cause of problems, whether they were problems related to Citrix or not. An application crashes - it's Citrix. Something breaks - it's Citrix."
David Jackson, CTO, Doyle Clayton
The arrival of Teams and Zoom accelerated the frustration. These applications were never designed to run inside a multi-user desktop environment, and the experience showed. Users found themselves minimising out of Citrix to join a video call, then switching back, then trying to share their screen across two separate windows running at different resolutions. David described it well: a fragmented day.
Josh added the technical dimension to this. Network dependency is one of the biggest pain points in any VDI environment. Unlike applications that can buffer or work offline, a virtual desktop requires a constant, reliable stream of data between the user and the hosted environment. A poor home broadband connection, a busy household at 3.30pm, a network issue upstream, any of these become the user's problem, and the IT team's problem to diagnose.
The support burden is measurable. Citrix environments typically generate around 1.6 support tickets per user per month. In a modern Microsoft 365 environment, that figure drops to around 0.6. The difference is not incidental — it reflects a fundamentally simpler architecture.
What a well-designed ecosystem actually looks like
The session was clear on what a better model looks like. The practice and case management system sits at the centre of the ecosystem as the single source of truth. Everything else, document management, specialist practice area tools, AML, compliance, AI, connects around it.
Oliver described this as the "extensibility" of a modern PCMS: the ability for firms to plug in the best available tools for each specific need, rather than being forced to use inferior built-in functionality or wait for their core system to develop it.
"There's so much of it that's outside of your control. A network issue really impacts a user. The experience just isn't fantastic."
Josh Foye, Microsoft Specialist, Pax8
Matt also highlighted the problem management complexity that comes with a distributed virtual desktop estate. When everyone was in the office, a support team could floor-walk and quickly establish whether a problem was systemic. With users working from home across dozens of different network environments, identifying the root cause of any given issue becomes significantly harder. Legal firms with 15 or 16 Outlook plug-ins add another layer of complexity on top of that.
What the modern alternative actually looks like
The good news is that the alternative is not complicated to describe, even if the migration journey takes careful planning.
Josh's summary was straightforward: the goal is for users to be able to work from anywhere, at any time, from any device, securely. Open the laptop. Everything is there. No window within a window, no computer within a computer.
The Microsoft technologies that underpin this experience fall into three areas:
Identity, via Entra ID. This is the foundation. In the old model, the network was the security perimeter. If you were on the network, you were trusted. That model does not work when users are working from home, coffee shops, and client sites. Identity replaces the network as the control layer, ensuring that the right people have access to the right resources, on the right devices, at the right time. Getting this right at the start matters: retrofitting a fragmented identity strategy later is painful.
Device management, via Intune. With users no longer tied to a trusted corporate network, the device itself becomes the thing that needs to be secured and managed. Intune handles configuration, application deployment, and security settings across the device estate, regardless of where those devices are being used.
Data governance, via Purview. As collaboration increases and data moves more freely, protecting it requires deliberate controls. Purview handles data classification, sensitivity labelling, and data loss prevention, ensuring that confidential information is encrypted and only accessible to the people who should have it.
Together, these three tools also reduce the need for legacy on-premise infrastructure. Domain controllers, which have historically been both a security risk and a maintenance overhead, can be decommissioned as Entra ID takes on their function.
The legal software strategy is the key
A modern Microsoft 365 environment only delivers its full potential if the legal software running alongside it is also browser-based. This is the point that Matt was keen to press.
David confirmed that Doyle Clayton's application landscape is now entirely browser-based, including their practice management system and document management system. Single sign-on integration with Microsoft 365 is a non-negotiable requirement when evaluating any new platform. It is the difference between a seamless experience and introducing new friction into a working environment that has been carefully simplified.
The shift has had a broader cultural effect too. David described how moving to a modern, web-based environment has changed the nature of conversations inside the firm. Partners who previously had no interest in discussing technology are now coming to him with ideas for integrations and process improvements. The technology feels approachable rather than opaque.
"It's just unlocked everybody's mindsets to think, there must be a way to do this. That's what we try and look to achieve. Admittedly, it comes with its own challenges, but it's a better problem to have, because everything you do now takes the business forward."
David Jackson, CTO, Doyle Clayton
For CTO-level professionals, the shift is equally significant. David reflected that the role has evolved from firefighting technical incidents to driving genuine transformation. The conversations have changed completely.
Matt was direct on one important point: firms need to think about their legal software strategy and their IT infrastructure strategy at the same time, not sequentially. He described a pattern he sees regularly. Firms that have migrated to a modern, browser-based practice management system like Actionstep, but have simultaneously signed a new three-year virtual desktop contract to keep a piece of legacy software running. A more joined-up approach to evaluating the full application landscape before signing those agreements would save time and money.
Where should firms start?
The session closed with practical advice for firms who know they need to make a change but are unsure where to begin.
Josh's answer was clear: start with identity.
"Identity is the key to everything. It's the hardest one to unpick if you don't get it right at the start. Looking at Entra ID, looking at conditional access, looking at replacing those domain controllers — that's the perfect starting point for any organisation."
Josh Foye, Microsoft Specialist, Pax8
David's advice was less technical but equally grounded. Look at the shelf life of your current infrastructure. If you are approaching a natural crossroads (ageing kit, expiring contracts, growing user frustration) that is the moment to evaluate the direction of travel rather than simply renewing what you already have. Map your business-critical processes, understand what you genuinely cannot compromise on, and assess whether the modern alternatives can meet those needs. In most cases, the pros will outweigh the cons.
Matt added one final note on timing: do not underestimate how long this takes. From first conversation to completed migration, the typical journey is around 12 months, with six to eight months of intensive hands-on work. The earlier firms start thinking about this, the better positioned they will be to ensure that contracts, applications, and infrastructure decisions all align with where they want to end up.
Want to explore this further?
This was the third session in our Legal Modern Workplace series. Coming sessions cover topics including putting the client at the heart of your tech strategy, Copilot versus specialist legal AI tools, and what the right balance of internal and external IT support looks like for law firms today.
If you would like to go deeper on the themes from this session, our Legal Modern Workplace white paper sets out a framework for building a technology strategy that actually connects, covering practice management, Microsoft 365, AI, data, and more.
Download the
Whitepaper
nexian.co.uk/legal-modern-workplace-whitepaper
Or get in touch with the team if you would like to talk through where your firm is on its technology journey.
