Part 1 of 2
Law firms are migrating online at an increasing pace, with small firms migrating faster than large firms. While this migration continues to lag behind other industries, there is no doubt that speed is picking up. As an example, the International Legal Technology Association’s (ITLA) 2023 report from more than 500 law firms and 150,000 attorneys reveals that 80% of respondents have their email in the cloud, up from 74% in 2022, and 50% in 2020. As another example, 57% report their document management system is cloud-based. Four years ago,
only 35% were cloud-based.
When law firm computing started to arrive in law firms, it was in the form of “dumb” terminals at the desktop, and a powerful server located on premise or remotely. Response time was often slow. Internet connections were spotty and unreliable.
Over time, powerful workstations loaded with most, if not all, of the software were at desktops. The server became a traffic cop for internet access bandwidth, printer access and document storage. Additional servers were often linked to the main server to house specialty applications like time & billing, case management, litigation support, estate planning and administration. The local workstation did the processing, eliminating former delays.
Firms became increasingly dependent on IT technicians to check backups, install software updates and troubleshoot dozens of software packages, including a new layer of security software. Most firms were happy with this environment. We had ability to get clientwork done around the clock. We had a great collection of reliable software tools excluding the blip caused when clients forced most firms to abandon WordPerfect and switch to Word. But it didn’t last long.
Too many law firms have been forced to grapple with the same issues:
• A forced discontinuation of many time & billing and/or integrated practice management software packages. With so many acquisitions over the past 5 to 10 years, many excellent products have gone by the wayside or suffered degeneration in quality and/or support since acquisition. All the new products are cloud-based.
• Looming necessary infrastructure upgrades. Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025. Many computers currently in use will not be able to handle the needs of Windows 11. Using outdated software is not an option for law firms, so we’re facing a huge upgrade in the very near future.
• A rapidly growing, increasingly complex threat environment is exceeding the realistic budget limits for most law firms. Keeping in mind that the largest demographic of law firms is in the solo to small firm segment, it’s just not possible to maintain the level of hardware and software security and the IT support to manage it. To obtain cyber insurance — something that is no longer optional in my opinion — firms are being increasingly forced to outsource their security infrastructure to a managed security provider (“MSP”) in order to secure a policy.
• Since the Covid lockdown, we have had a continuing investment in virtual workers and hybrid/remote work schedules. Making sure remote and virtual workersare adhering to security protocols, while at the same time making it relatively simple for them to access the firm’s resources, has increased the need for cloud-based computing.The only realistic solution we have now for most law firms is to return to a relatively simple and inexpensive workstation, along with a cloud-based service provider who handles all our technical maintenance needs like the following:
• Software updates (including licensing), patches and troubleshooting.
• Documents, including encryption, backup and restoration.
• Creating seamless integrations between various software packages.
• Security at a level most firms can’t afford, covering email, documents, texts, voicemails, all remaining data and connections between users and data, from any device or location.
What follows is a case study of my move from a local server and a peer-to-peer (“P2P”) network to a 100% cloud-based operation. Believe it or not, I had a combination of three different IT vendors to support my P2P, which includes one tower workstation with three monitors, one laptop with two monitors, another laptop and a notebook/tablet. I had one multi-function workhorse for copying, faxing, scanning and big print jobs. I had one black and white laser printer for checks and other smaller print jobs. I also had a huge, full-color duplex laser printer. Plus, an assortment of miscellaneous devices, like my bank scanner for deposits, external hard drives for backup, and so forth.
At first, I had only a boots-on-the-ground IT support company. And it pretty much responded to everything I needed. But the expense grew over time because of imperfect software upgrades that sometimes left me unable to even boot up, frequent security upgrades to routers, and security software with ominous warnings I didn’t understand. Oh, and don’t get me started on Microsoft glitches. Dealing with Microsoft was a nightmare. My first addition was a cloud service provider for all my Microsoft applications, including upgrading my email power from PoP3 to an Exchange server with spam and malware filtering. I never had to deal with a missing license key or Microsoft support person after that. I never came into a crashed system because some Microsoft patch didn’t properly install. It was heaven.
Then backup became an issue. I had been using a cloud-based backup product to augment my local backups to external hard drives. But the company was bought and the next thing I knew, I could no longer make sense of how they operated. I was paying for rapidly increasing storage and could no longer perform test restores to know my backups were working. Not long after that, my highly rated anti-virus anti-malware failed me. I lost use of every software package, one at a time, within 2 days. My physical server was trashed in the attack. I had to buy a new server, have all my software installed and updated and then restore my documents from my external hard drive. By the time I paid all the expenses and looked at my lost billable time, I realized that I needed to outsource my security, software updates to non-Microsoft products. That added a third vendor to the mix, because my boots-on-the-ground vendor didn’t offer all these services, and what they did offer was too expensive.
Yes, my computing environment was fractured. Certainly not ideal with three vendors involved. But everything was working, finally, at the level it was supposed to, and it was an affordable solution. I was not wasting time trouble-shooting problems. And to be honest, I was not ready to invest the time to do proper due diligence to find one vendor to handle it all.
It was at this point that my sister was diagnosed with brain cancer. It was going to require I spend chunks of time out of town, so, I needed to be able to work from anywhere. I had no choice in making my move to the cloud.
My next article picks up where this leaves off. Spoiler alert: it took a bit longer than I expected to pick the right cloud service provider, but the transition was much easier than I expected.
A version of this article originally appeared in the July 21, 2025 issue of Pennsylvania Bar News.
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