BCF Business Law Migrates From a Legacy PBX to Microsoft Teams Phone
Challenge
Changing UC platforms is complex and can be risky—especially in a law firm. Lawyers and supporting staff work under significant pressure and tight deadlines; they can't afford communication failures and generally resist change.
The nature of legal work also involves highly sensitive communications that must stay private. BCF must comply with strict data privacy and security regulations, requiring extra vigilance around encryption, access controls, and user training for voice conversations.
Migrating to Microsoft—still a relative newcomer to UC—carried its own risk: could Teams deliver the same service users had on the legacy system? The consensus was that any short-term trade-offs would be the right decision for the long term.
Approach
BCF's management team made the strategic decision to move telephony off its legacy on-premise PBX and onto Microsoft Teams. The goal was a more unified technology platform—tighter integration of chat, video conferencing, file sharing, and calling—while streamlining voice-enabled workflows and eliminating the need for a separate proprietary UC platform.
Already heavily invested in Microsoft, BCF saw Teams Phone as a natural fit: seamless integration, a familiar user experience, and easier collaboration across geographically dispersed teams. With most employees working remotely and relying on cell phones during the pandemic, management also saw the migration as a chance to retire desk phones in favor of headsets.
Solution
ZIRO designed a solution to migrate 600 knowledge workers and a fax solution across two sites in Quebec, eliminating common-area phones where possible and moving all attorneys to a headset-only setup.
To support PSTN connectivity with BCF's existing carrier, ZIRO deployed its Direct Routing as a Service (DRaaS) with the Bring Your Own Carrier option, letting BCF keep its carrier relationship through the commitment period. During the migration, the new Microsoft phone system and the legacy PBX coexisted—ZIRO configured Session Border Controllers (SBCs) to connect Microsoft, the legacy PBX, and BCF's fax server, easing the migration burden.
The ZIRO platform supported daily UC tasks across both environments, letting the helpdesk manage dial plans and daily adds, moves, and changes without touching the legacy PBX UI, Teams Admin Center, or PowerShell—minimizing BCF's need for internal UC expertise.
Results
What’s next
Beyond the current commitment period, BCF plans to migrate entirely to ZIRO DRaaS, retiring the third-party carrier relationship and further simplifying its voice stack.
With Teams Phone now unifying chat, video, file sharing, and calling on one platform, BCF is positioned to keep scaling its communications alongside the firm's growth—collaborating seamlessly across Montreal, Quebec City, and its international alliances.
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