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Law firm IT leaders give their view: Janet Day (Berwin Leighton Paisner)
| 28 January 2011
The year 2011 will bring a lot of change to the legal technology industry. We at Legal IT Professionals wondered how law firm IT leaders look at the near future. To find out, Geoff Zodda put together ten questions and selected 5 IT leaders from major law firms to answer them.
Today, it is Janet Day's turn to answer the questions. Janet is Director Technology and Infrastructure Services at Berwin Leighton Paisner.
Will the role of the CIO/CTO change in law firms as some experts have predicted in the next year?
The role of the CIO/CTO has been a constantly changing one - the coming year will be no different to earlier years - there will be some evolutionary change and some revolutionary change.
Will major IT projects that had previously been postponed as a result of the recent economy, such as upgrades, rollouts, and conversions, going to be re-initiated?
Many of the delayed projects are now moving towards the imperative, and so will be reinstated, but possibly in changed, cut down or contained format.
Will current trends across the legal industry drive new technologies to emerge or come to the forefront in the next year?
Yes, there will be an increasing focus on commoditisation and a continuing focus on security.
Will the majority of firms within the AMLaw 250 develop SharePoint or other web-based portals in-house?
I suspect most will do the larger volume of the work inhouse.
Where will be the major areas of growth departmentally within law firm IT groups?
Business analysis and project management.
Which of the major software vendors will have the greatest impact on law firms’ spending in 2011?
Too tricky to call - could be hardware and software together which might have the greatest impact - for instance Apple.
Are law firms going to continue with VoIP technology or is there another trend on the rise within telecommunications?
Desk based telephony is dying. Single device calling will become the norm, where the mobile can act as each of the standard communication tools.
What types of applications will begin to be utilized that haven’t been widely used in the past?
An increasing use of video and collaboration tools.
As law firms continue to take on sizable litigation matters, will firms build up their litigation and e-discovery support practices internally, or outsource services?
Yes to both, depending on the firm, its strategy and the size and scale of that practice area.
Will firms centralize their IT departments or will they build them within the individual offices?
Many will remain as at present hubbed but centralised.
