Cloud Services for Law Firms Gaining Popularity
Cloud Services for Law Firms is gaining traction among attorneys for several good reasons.
Advocates and early adapters of Cloud Services for Law Firms maintain that its chief advantages include economy, simplicity and accessibility.
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See also: Interest in Paperless Law Firm Capabilities Picking Up
Cloud Services for Law Firms now include legal practice management solutions, document management and data storage, secure document and information platforms, hosted secure email exchanges, digital dictation services and billing/time tracking. Cloud-based SME platforms are innovative, economical and increasingly viable for legal practices of all sizes.
Cloud Services for Law Firms Advantages
Law firm cloud computing advantages include reduced overhead due to decreased IT costs, increased ease of IT maintenance and support,
Taking advantage of law firm cloud computing allows attorneys to focus on providing legal services while the cloud provider updates, upgrades and maintains the practice management, accounting, time tracking, and other applications on both a regular and emergency basis.
“Law firm cloud computing means that staff can access the files and data that they need even when they’re working remotely and/or outside office hours. As long as an attorney, paralegal or even a client can get on the Internet, work product can be accessed from home, on the road, from clients’ offices or even from a smart phone such as a BlackBerry or iPhone,” reports attorney Christopher Hill at his Virginia Construction Law blog. “Staff can also work collaboratively on files and documents, even when they’re not physically together. Documents can simultaneously be viewed and edited from multiple locations.”
Hill agrees that the greatest economic advantage of the new law firm cloud offerings is the reduced cost of hardware and software. Less hardware can mean less hardware and IT contract maintainence. “With an outsourced cloud, you gain an increasing economy of scale of those expert resources.”
Hill isn’t the only law expert speaking positively about the virtues of law firm cloud computing. Professor Richard Susskind’s law firm technology predictions for last year said —
“Many firms will move their data and processing to the cloud. Confidentiality concerns are being addressed and, in any event, it is probable that a first-rate outsource provider will offer better security than many firms can provide for themselves. This applies to litigation as much as to other things – much litigation data is either price-sensitive or very personal; how many firms can say in a post-WikiLeaks world that they are truly confident of their own security?”
Similarly, Sottland’s ‘Solicitor-of-the-Year’ Brian Inkster discusses cloud services for law firms in his blog on “legal practice, past, present and future,’ The Time Blawg, states that:-
“I must agree with Nicole Black: Law firm cloud computing – where data and platforms are stored on servers located outside of a law office – is on the rise. For many lawyers, cloud computing is an affordable and flexible alternative to traditional server or desktop-based software platforms. Legal ethics committees across the country are issuing opinions and guidelines for lawyers hoping to use cloud computing platforms in their practice. The issuance of guidelines was encouraging and offered lawyers a useful road map that ensured the ethical deployment of cloud computing platforms in their practices.”
What is the future of cloud services for law firms medium and small? Remember us, Cloud9 Real Time, we aren’t just the #1 rated Quickbooks Cloud. If you have a law practice and are ready to consider the advantages of law firm cloud computing, talk to to us and get some answers.
