Into the cloud

Written by Joanna Goodman  | 09 April 2009

By now you will have heard that Legal Technology Journal is no longer being published, hence the extended gap between LITP columns. I have to start by thanking people who e-mailed saying they’ll miss the LTJ. So will I – it’s sad to dismantle a really good team. But life – and legal IT – must go on. I’m a freelance writer and I continue to cover the legal and technology sectors – more news to come so watch this space as I’ll be looking for comment and input!

It could be said that Legal Technology Journal and the Legal Technology Awards went out with a bang. More than 450 people attended the awards and as someone who does a lot of work by e-mail and on the phone it was great to meet the legal IT crowd – not least the founder of this site.

As this is my first LITP column for 2009, I thought I’d highlight some of the latest trends: new challenges and new technology.

Firms are still focused sharply on Green IT, especially if it saves money while it saves the planet. As everyone also knows, London’s Legal IT Show was quiet compared with previous years. Was it the recession, a reluctance to travel – or was it the snow in London – an unusual occurrence which ground our public transport system to a halt? The keynote speech by James Woudhuysen focused on Green issues and their impact on IT. His book – on economics, energy and IT – is erudite and well written, which isn’t surprising given that James is a lecturer at de Montfort University, but it occurs to me that for an environmentalist, he is using an awful lot of paper. It says nowhere in the book whether it was printed on recycled paper…please correct me if I am wrong…

Notwithstanding the reduced attendance at the Legal IT Show, suppliers there were generally optimistic. Managing director David McNamara felt that SOS Connect stood to benefit from consolidation among legal IT suppliers. He explained that when suppliers are acquired, their software is discontinued and support is no longer available. So when the time comes to replace systems, law IT directors realise that a straightforward upgrade is not an option and look afresh at what is available on the market. This represents a new business opportunity for the likes of SOS.

Redundancies among the large City firms have also produced an increase in newly established small and medium-sized firms as well as sole practitioners looking for reliable, cost-effective IT solutions that operate in a similar way to the PMS and DMS that many of them were accustomed to using . But a new, small firm does not have the infrastructure requirements – or the budget – of a City or national firm. Medium and larger firms too are looking to reduce their infrastructure commitments and costs. For many, the answer is in the cloud. Cloud hosted services are increasingly popular, helping firms of all sizes manage risks associated with retention and security and adapt quickly to internal changes in staffing/office moves/mergers etc. All you need is an internet connection.

Another way of reducing infrastructure costs is outsourcing. When I wrote about this in 2007, firms tended to outsource commoditised work and back-office functions, including document production and some IT services. Since then, the trend across Europe has moved to larger-scale projects, where the outsourced service is part of the firm’s core infrastructure. Examples include Eversheds’ help desk and support systems, Cuatracasas’ telephony system and more recently Osborne Clarke’s headline-grabbing decision to outsource its entire IT system.

The downturn has led firms to focus sharply on strategy – strategy based on cost savings and the ability to adapt to a changing business environment – and legal IT needs to become a shape shifter too, with IT departments becoming businesses within businesses, and infrastructure moving to the cloud.