Designing and Implementing My Law Office Network

This post is timely for me since I have recently added another attorney to my law practice, which prior to the addition consisted of just me.  Due to my true solo size and structure I had little need for a network at the computer.  The nice this is office space I occupy is wired sufficiently to provide me with the opportunity to create a simple peer-to-peer network and to park my network capable multi-function machine at a workstation outside of my office.  This simple office network has significant limitations and I am completely comfortable saying that I only know the half of it.  I am not an trained IT professional, but as the head chef and chief bottle washer of this operation I have no choice but to brandish a million different hats.  If that sounds like a complaint I must clarify, because I absolutely love being responsible for each and every aspect of running a small law practice.  I admit, that sounds a bit weird, but I do very much like the different things I get to (some would say have to) do on a routine basis.  Anyway, I realized today that we are going to have to take our little office network up a couple of notches in the very near future. 

The bottom line is that I need a stand-alone computer or server to maximize the effectiveness of our network.  Right now we basically use my MacBook Pro as a quasi-server because everything flows through my hard drive and the backups are done from that point.  As you might expect this creates an interesting (okay debilitating) result if my computer is not connected to the network, since my colleagues computer will no longer have access to client files, forms, etc. 

To remedy this I spent some time today looking at the possibility of using a Mac Mini as a server for our network.  That way we can centralizing everything on the Mini and the system will still perform effectively when either of the two laptops are off or disconnected.  It will also provide a central location for backing up the data files.  From everything I have found this appears to be a viable option, but I will have to spend more time researching it before I make a decision.  I'll report back my decision and my review of the process during and after implementation.  In the interim I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions on the topic of creating a office network for a small law firm.  As always any insight is very much appreciated.