Scalability

As your firm grows and evolves, so will your technology needs. For example, you’ll need more hardware, additional users, more file storage, and other components. The vendor you choose should be able to scale along with you to best support your business.

The day may also come where you need to evaluate or implement new legal software (practice management, document management, and/or accounting software).

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Your IT support provider should also be able to give you advice on changes you can make to your tech stack that will enable growth. Don’t hire a vendor that’s simply a tech repair business. Instead, hire someone you can trust to deliver expert, industry-specific advice on using tech to build your business.

Proactive IT Management

The best way to ensure your systems are always ready for work when you are is to be proactive, eliminating potential IT issues before they occur. Proactive law firm IT support and management is the process of monitoring your systems to identify and solve potential problems. 

Great vendors will be proactive in their management instead of reactive, which means only solving issues that have already happened. Some refer to this as the “break-fix” approach. Something breaks, you fix it, over and over again.

The best benefit of proactive IT management is the elimination of downtime resulting from tech issues. Every minute your tech tools are unavailable costs you. This can greatly impact your bottom line. By being proactive, you can prevent costly downtime and keep work running smoothly.

Remote Law Firm IT Support 

Your vendor should provide remote support capabilities. This is especially important if you are using the cloud. Some vendors may draw the line at supporting your local equipment such as your firewall or switch. These components play a critical role in how your connection to and from the cloud works.

At a minimum, your provider should offer some basic remote support of your local network in addition to the support provided for cloud components. This means your vendor can access your local network from another location via a remote desktop.

Remote support also improves response times. Through a remote desktop connection, your provider doesn’t have to send an IT specialist to your location, wasting critical time (and maybe even resulting in an additional fee for the trip). Instead, issues can be resolved almost immediately from anywhere.

How to Find the Right IT Support for Law Firms

The good news is that there are many IT support providers out there. Yet, this can also be bad news. With so many vendors to choose from, how do you ensure you make the right choice? Start by taking these steps.

Important: When selecting a law firm IT support vendor, they must be the right fit for your unique firm. You know your IT needs best. Also, remember that the best IT support doesn’t have to be local. Modern technologies make remote IT support just as effective as local support.

1. Search for Specialized IT Support for Law Firms

We’ve already talked a lot about this, but it’s so important. Law firm IT is a different thing entirely. You work with confidential client data that must be protected by tough security measures. You use software such as LexWorkplace or PCLaw that are law-specific solutions. Your firm’s technology must be compliant with ABA standards and other regulations.

And those needs are only scratching the surface. The right IT support for your firm understands these needs and more. Having a few law firms as clients isn’t enough for an IT provider to truly grasp the nature of law firm IT. Instead, the provider you choose should have extensive experience working with many law firms.

2. Ask Questions About the Vendor’s Experience & Services

During your initial search, you should come away with a list of potential vendors. Now, the deep work begins. You’ll want to start by reaching out to the individual vendors, so you can get to know their services and what they can offer your firm.

You’ll want to ask plenty of questions, so you can walk away with a good understanding of the vendor’s capabilities and offerings. Here are some questions to get you started:

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3. Dig Into the Vendor’s Service Level Agreement (SLA)

A service level agreement (SLA) outlines what you can expect from your vendor. It lists the expectations of both parties and defines what happens when requirements aren’t met. It’s a critical document you should review for each vendor you’re considering for your firm.

The SLA will cover which services the vendor will and will not provide. It will also cover the vendor’s responsibilities as well as the IT response times and service hours you can expect.

When reviewing the SLA, consider what service limits you’re willing to allow and which ones you can’t ignore. You’ll want to ensure you’re comfortable with the SLA before moving forward as your working relationship will be built upon it. 

For example, are you comfortable with a 24-hour response time when issues arise? If not, you may need to look elsewhere.

4. Discuss the Vendor’s Cost Structure in Detail

Beyond service agreements and capabilities, you’ll also want to make sure you’re comfortable with the vendor’s cost structure. You should familiarize yourself with what’s included, what’s not, and what additional fees may exist.

How Much Will a Vendor of IT Support for Law Firms Cost?

MSPs typically require monthly payments much like a subscription. And some MSPs will require a monthly fee per user. Monthly costs may range from anywhere to a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars each month, depending on your needs and the size of your firm.

It’s also possible to pay hourly for IT services. But we generally recommend against this method. By paying hourly, you’ll more than likely feel the need to complete basic IT tasks yourself to save cash. Unfortunately, this takes time away from your firm and other critical business activities.

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Questions to Ask Your Vendor Regarding Pricing

Be sure to discuss what’s not included in the monthly cost. For example, what other project fees or extended services fees are not included or covered?

You’ll also want to make sure the vendor isn’t nickel and diming you. Some MSPs will require additional fees for even basic IT functions. Things to specifically ask your vendor about include:

5. Request References

It’s one thing for an IT service provider to say they can handle IT support for law firms, but it’s another to have proof. As any good attorney would, it’s important to do your due diligence here. Ask the vendor for references from past or current law firm clients. Then, reach out to them to learn more about their experience.

Be sure to ask the firm questions about components such as customer service, response times, work quality, and security. We recommend reaching out to a few different law firms for the best input. And if the vendor is unable to give you references from legal clients, consider moving towards another vendor.

Once you have made it through these steps, you should have a single vendor that fits the bill or a shortlist of candidates to consider. We recommend allowing your team to be a part of the decision-making process. That way, everyone is comfortable moving forward.

Beware Server Proliferation (Pushed by Your IT Firm)

After working with hundreds of law firms for the past decade plus, I want to caution law firms that are being advised by a local IT firm or Managed IT provider.

If you’re like many law firm lately, you’ve moved some, if not many of your software functions to web-based/cloud based software.  For instance, perhaps you’ve moved:

Many law firms are in some phase of transitioning each element of their firm’s technology to cloud-based tools.  And with each step, there’s one less thing your on-premise serve is needed for.

The natural progression here is that, eventually, there is no remaining need for an on-premise server.  Once you’ve moved email, your main software applications and your files/folders to the cloud, there is no longer a need for onsite servers in the first place.

But here’s the thing.

Most local IT service providers understand that no onsite servers means far less for them to manage, which directly translates to less revenue for them.  It simplify costs (a lot) less to manage a law firm that doesn’t have servers, and is using entirely cloud-based tools.

Unfortunately, this leads many local law firm IT support companies to insist:  “No, you still need a server for (XYZ reason).”  These purported reasons may include:

The truth is, these few remaining utility functions can cost-effectively be moved to other cloud-based services (such as Microsoft Azure or Practice Next), truly eliminating any residual need for on-premise servers.  Unfortunately, we’ve witnessed local IT firms cling to onsite servers to keep their management fees and revenue intact.  

If you’ve moved all data, documents and apps to the cloud, make no mistake:  You no longer need onsite servers, or the ongoing cost to maintain them.

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Uptime Practice™ Next: A Complete Law Firm IT Support Platform

To make the most of your tech resources and to get access to the best law firm IT support available, we recommend moving to cloud-based tools, including cloud-based billing, case management, document management and collaboration tools.  And we recommend a single, central IT support platform to tie all of your cloud-based tools together.  

Uptime Practice™ Next is your complete law office in the cloud. It’s a suite of essential cloud-based practice management and productivity tools, including everything you need to run your law office in the cloud:

Beyond the tools offered inside Uptime Practice™ Next, we provide all the tech support you need from onboarding to troubleshooting. We’ll start by analyzing your current software to map your blueprint to the cloud. Next, we’ll help you set up your practice management software and Microsoft 365.

From there, we’ll consolidate and migrate your documents and data to your new cloud storage platform and set up your collaboration tools. Once we’re done, we don’t leave you to fend for yourself. We provide ongoing support of the Practice Next suite for your entire firm.

Uptime Legal Systems supports hundreds of law firms across North America. We’ve worked with every leading piece of legal software, including those for billing and practice management, document management, and accounting. You can trust us to help you take advantage of the cloud to grow your law firm.

Learn More About Uptime Practice™ Next Today

When you need a robust, cloud-based law practice management solution and dedicated, law-specific IT support, Uptime Practice™ Next is a great choice. Learn more about law firm IT support or Uptime Practice™ Next by reaching out to us today.