How to Improve Your Legal IT the Fast and Easy Way

Technology continues to rapidly advance and become more integrated in nearly every facet of business—and the relationship between technology and the field of law is no exception.

No matter the size or specialty of your law firm, there are certain challenges that are ubiquitous to the intersection of technology and law. From cybersecurity concerns to compliance issues and more, there are important aspects to evaluate when it comes to improving your legal IT experience.

IT for law firms should be a powerful resource, not a hindrance to your productivity or budget. If you’re struggling to address a variety of technological issues within your law firm, then it might be time to partner with a managed IT services provider with a specialty in legal IT support.

Partnering with a managed IT service provider can help keep your network secure and support your team in addressing some of the most pressing obstacles impacting your IT management.

Top 5 Challenges for Legal IT

Leadership teams at legal firms manage so many responsibilities during their day to day. Building client relationships. Nurturing new leads. Managing complex cases. Setting and achieving revenue goals. Improving client retention. Building their workforce.

There are so many areas of focus on the operations side, and those don’t even account for managing the IT infrastructure and securing internal networks.

Within the world of legal IT, there are a number of challenges to navigate and mitigate. Here are a few that can require lots of time and effort:

Protecting Client Data

Your law firm’s ultimate goal is to deliver a great experience and outcome for your clients. Compromised cybersecurity or hacked client data works directly against that mission.

Safeguarding your clients’ data is a top priority for any law firm; leaked information could threaten the validity of your case, tremendously damage your firm’s reputation, result in lost client trust, and cost your firm a lot of money.

Cyber threats are no joke and they’ve only increased in frequency and intensity over the last few years. Since the start of the pandemic, digital threats, hacks, and breaches exponentially jumped up 600%. This means that any virtual environment or industry is liable to experience some level of cybersecurity threat—including the legal field, of course.

In fact, the American Bar Association’s 2021 Legal Technology Survey Report found that 25% of survey respondents said they experienced a data breach at some point within the year. These breaches can be catastrophic from a financial standpoint.

Digital attacks are incredibly costly, both in terms of reputation and budget. The total estimated cost of cybercrime was around $6 trillion in 2021 alone. Naturally, mitigating this cost and risk for law firms is a top challenge and priority. Nobody wants to end up in the headlines for compromised client data.

Maintaining Compliance

Compliance is always a high priority for nearly any industry or field these days; as regulations continue to evolve in relation to changing technologies, staying on top of these updates can be a hassle and cause headaches. Not to mention, the potential for legal action and hefty fines if found to be in violation of compliance measures is concerning.

For example, if your law firm specializes in injury litigation then it’s crucial to achieve HIPAA compliance. Training your employees on all pertinent compliance standards can be time-consuming, but risking a violation is certainly worse—particularly when the overall cost of noncompliance is roughly three times that of maintaining compliance.

Ensuring Transparency

For decades, if not centuries, the legal field has been shrouded in mystery for the average person and probably your clients. In recent years, however, there’s been a push to pull back the curtains and shed light on the complexities of the legal process for clients. Part of this means being transparent and more accountable to your clients by providing a clear view of their case progress, legal fees and expenses, and other information relevant to their engagement with your law firm.

Shifting gears to present a more client-centric approach can be complicated, though, especially if your firm isn’t equipped with the appropriate resources to deliver a transparent experience for your clients.

Fixing Clunky Workflows

How long does it take you or your staff to work through a stack of case files? It likely takes days or weeks to thoroughly review mountains of files and important documents pertaining to your law firm’s work in a manual fashion—and deciphering handwritten notes can be tedious in its own right.

Fighting clunky workflows can be a top challenge for your law firm and slow down pivotal steps in the legal process for your clients. Working against difficult internal processes without a more effective solution can cost you and your law firm time, money, and energy.

This is why deploying effective legal workflow automations is so important. And as law firms start adopting new technologies to streamline their workflows through automations, this can increase the complexity of its IT infrastructure, creating new potential network security vulnerabilities.

Lacking Internal Resources

No matter the size or scale of your legal firm, there’s a chance that your internal resources are strained or could be allocated in a more impactful manner. This is a challenge that any law firm faces simply because the legal field is so intricate and therefore time-consuming.

Determining a better use of resources can be tricky, though, especially if each employee has to wear multiple hats and cover administrative tasks in addition to their core workload.

Benefits of Managed IT Services for Law Firms

Legal IT will continue to be an essential part of your business, but without the proper tools and expertise or not having enough internal resources can put your firm at a significant risk.

Fortunately, partnering with a managed IT services provider can greatly strengthen your law firm and streamline your operations. Check out these benefits of utilizing a managed legal IT services provider:

Fortify Your Cybersecurity to Safeguard Client Information

With a managed IT services provider, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that your client and firm information is safeguarded with strong encryption methods and fortified cybersecurity efforts. This means your firm and your clients’ sensitive information won’t be compromised and your firm’s name will stay out of headlines that could cost you business.

Automate Compliance

Instead of spending time keeping up with updates to important compliance measures or strategizing how to implement these changes within your firm—especially when it comes to legal IT software—you can enjoy automated compliance with an outsourced provider.

Partnering with a managed IT services firm with a specialty in legal IT means that you won’t risk being found in violation of compliance standards.

Remain Accountable and Enhance Transparency

An effective and efficient legal IT solution means that you and your clients can forge a stronger relationship by remaining accountable and enhancing the transparency of your operations.

In today’s age of technology, transparency is a cornerstone of building trust and attracting new clients because communication and openness are valued in the market. After all, knowledge is power—and empowering your clients to ask questions or check in on the progress of their case results in a better relationship, as opposed to keeping them in the dark.

Optimize Operations to Save Time and Money

If your firm spends hours every week handling administrative tasks that are repetitive and monotonous, then it’s time to partner with a managed IT services provider that can help your firm’s legal IT solution work for you—not the other way around.

With important yet time-consuming tasks handled using the power of automation and knowing that you’ll get notified if there’s a situation that needs human intervention, you and your staff can dedicate more time to strategic initiatives.

Maximize Productivity Without Maxing Out Your Budget

It’s something that nearly every business, no matter the industry or size, strives to achieve: how to maximize productivity without maxing out your budget or sacrificing quality.

Partnering with a managed IT services provider that has specialized expertise in legal IT means that you and your law firm can significantly boost productivity without compromising the quality of your work or slashing salaries. Overall, your law firm can work more efficiently by leveraging an outsourced legal IT service provider.

Jumpstart Your Legal IT Now with Converged Technology Group

Converged Technology Group is a technology and managed service provider (MSP) based in Long Island and New York City. Our team has been recognized as a leader within our industry for over a decade.

Our engaging and educational approach to delivering technology solutions that help your law firm achieve optimized operations without maxing out your budget make us a perfect extension of your team.

Contact us today to get started.