When Law Firms Should Make the Switch to a Managed Service Provider

If you ask any attorney, there’s nothing more frustrating than sitting down with a full day of billable work ahead and having your technology fail you. With many small to medium-sized law firms managing their own infrastructure, IT issues typically fall into the hands of the most tech-savvy employee available. But it’s no secret that a lawyer, paralegal, or office administrator is a little out of their element when trying to simultaneously function as an IT professional. Technology is causing time to slip through the cracks, and in an industry where time is money, a better solution needs to be implemented.

Are You in Need of Managed Services?

The IT pain spectrum is vast – it ranges from annoyances like forgotten passwords or misplaced ISP information, all the way to massive data loss and security breaches. When it comes to your law firm, at what point is it time to partner with a managed service provider to handle the technology responsibilities associated with your environment? Below, we highlight five situations that signal the need for managed services.

1. Significant Downtime

Whether it’s a server failure or a critical software application that’s not responding, a red flag is waving if situations in which users cannot access the data they need are even semi-frequent. In a time-sensitive industry, attorneys and their teams cannot afford to be idle due to downtime in their environment.

2. Underperforming Systems & Applications

No one enjoys waiting around on the friend who is always late. And unfortunately, a lot of law firms experience a similar situation when it comes to their technology. If you oftentimes find yourself tapping your finger at your desk as an application sluggishly crawls its way along, impeding your ability to work, it’s time to consider managed services.

3. Inefficient Integration of LOB Applications

As Line of Business applications grow, so do the integration challenges tied to these tools. Document management systems, cost recovery systems, and more are of critical value to attorneys and their teams, and these applications need to play nicely with standard tools such as the Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Creative Cloud, and more. When LOB and horizontal applications sometimes seem like they result in more frustration than efficiency, contacting a managed service provider is in order.

4. Trailing the IT Security Curve

Protecting client data and case information is of the utmost importance for attorneys, and your IT security measures cannot be an afterthought. With new threats every day, security best practices change rapidly, and law firms oftentimes find themselves falling behind the curve. Before long, your systems are vulnerable, which can result in catastrophic consequences for all parties involved.

5. Availability of IT Support

Law firms already leveraging support solutions aren’t immune to IT pain. Internal IT managers are often overwhelmed by the complexity of ever-changing IT, or spend too much time focused on tactical things instead of helping your firm get more out of your information technology. Alternatively, Break/Fix vendors aren't always as responsive or as proactive as you need them to be (by definition, they only make money when things break!). When a law firm’s IT support solution isn’t capable of juggling the 24/7 IT management challenges of the legal industry, contacting a reputable managed service provider is a must.

A World Class Managed Service Provider

At Apogee IT Services, we understand the unique technology challenges attorneys and their teams face on a consistent basis. Over 25 years ago, we got our start as a managed service provider in Pittsburgh serving law firms, and many of them remain clients to this day. As your MSP, we provide predictable IT from an availability, support, and cost perspective, ultimately helping your law firm stay focused on the work that matters most.