Your clients come to your firm for results—often under extraordinary circumstances. When you’re burning the night oil on your latest case, the last thing you need to be thinking about is whether or not you can resolve some glitch with your computer after hours, or whether or not you’ve just transferred a file securely. You need IT support for law firms that runs at the speed of your practice.
The good news is, IT help specifically for law firms can be affordable and scalable, even for smaller firms. How do you separate the IT MSPs with real law firm expertise from those without. it? This blog will explore that question, and help you find the right IT partner for you.
IT Support for Law Firms: What Makes It Different
Most IT MSPs can offer your company basic cybersecurity and productivity tools. But not all of them understand the unique needs a law firm experiences—especially in a busy, growing practice. Specifically, law firms have a higher need for:
Secure Document Management
Software and storage services geared specifically for the safe transfer of large amounts of sensitive discovery documents, legal contracts, and more between you, your clients, and support staff involved in your cases. Your MSP needs to understand the programs used, how they integrate with the rest of your systems, and how to safeguard them from security leaks.
Compliance
Conforming to law firm best practices and also the data handling regulatory needs of your clients. Your client’s regulatory load will apply to your client communications, especially when it comes to health records covered by HIPAA, tranasaction data covered by GDPR, or government data held by government contractors.
Your IT firm should be able to advise you on compliance, and how to put the right tools and protocols in place to stay one step ahead of cybersecurity regulators. They’ll be able to find you the right document management vendors, and train your staff on how to manage your data. For a deeper look at this topic, check out our latest blog on IT compliance for law firms.
Work from Anywhere Capabilities
Technology allows you to support people who work at home, and while traveling. If your cases demand your team work offsite during a trial or intense discovery period, your IT firm should be able to swing into action, so you’ve got the tech bandwidth to handle any short-term challenge. They should be able to handle data security, connectivity, backup, onsite service and more.
24/7 Emergency IT Support
You can’t afford to have a file lock up or a server go down the night before a big court date. When you pick up the phone to get help, you need local help that understands your firm, your software, and your hardware inventory. In the event of a data breach or a system failure, you need expert escalation services available anytime, anywhere.
IT Support Services for Law Firms: Seven Questions to Ask in 2024
When it comes to finding IT consulting services, you have your choice between a solo consultant, the MSP down the street, or larger MSP firms. All of them may say they have expertise working with law firms. Here’s what they should be able to offer, and what you should ask about when you’re shopping for the right IT partner.
(CTA: Find out More about Integris IT support for Law Firms)
1. How Comprehensive Are Your Managed IT Services?
Anyone can push a few buttons and buy software licenses. Look for IT vendors that can handle your IT systems from top to bottom, including servers, networks, workstations/devices, and bring-own-devices like cell phones that log into your systems.
If you have a server room or complex on-site networks, it pays to have access to onsite IT engineers when needed. Will they handle ongoing monitoring? Reporting? Patching, updates, and remediations? Onboarding and offboarding? Will you have a dedicated team that interfaces with your own internal IT staff? Or will they replace the need for an internal IT staff? All these questions will help you determine the type of MSP you’ll need.
2. Can You Offer Optimized Support for Legal Software?
Legal-industry software, such as case management systems, document management systems, and billing software, requires specialized knowledge for effective integration and maintenance. An experienced MSP ensures these tools are optimized for your firm’s needs.
A good MSP partner will understand how that software affects your workflow management, and how it integrates with other platforms you might be using, such as Microsoft Office, and more. They’ll help you with integration and maintenance, and make sure everything is designed to meet your firm’s needs.
3. Can You Create a Complete Cybersecurity Strategy for My Firm?
Look for an IT partner that can look at your systems holistically—from your software, to your devices, to your networks, to your backup and recovery. You’ll need an interlocking suite of cybersecurity tools that are protecting your systems, each in their own way.
Make sure your IT partner can help you with IT budgeting, strategic IT planning, and software implementations, in addition to the workaday tasks of onboarding/offboarding, monitoring, and such.
4. Do You Have Security Experts Who Can Help My Firm with Regulatory Compliance?
If you work with clients who have a heavy regulatory load around their data handling, it pays to have experts on call who can help you stay compliant on your end. IT partners with CISSP-certified virtual Chief Information Security Officers (vCISOs) can be a real asset. They can help you with:
- Complex cybersecurity audits
- Creating written cybersecurity plans, policies, and procedures
- Vetting third party vendors and services that access your systems
- Ensuring new software buys coordinate well with existing systems
- Evaluating your operations for adherence to regulatory frameworks like HIPAA, CMMC, GDPR, and more
- Providing cybersecurity documentation for cyber risk insurance applications and yearly reviews
When should you shop for a vCISO? One of our recent articles on the topic breaks it down.
5. Can You Help the Firm with Backup and Disaster Recovery?
Lost or corrupted files can be catastrophic for a law firm. You need an IT partner that understands how to handle—and backup—sensitive legal documents. This includes backups on your devices and servers, of course. But, with many firms now operating mainly in the cloud, off-site cloud backups are crucial.
While Microsoft offers backups at key intervals, you’ll need a more comprehensive strategy that’s a “backup to your backup,” and is secure enough to stand up to the needs to the legal industry. Find an IT partner who can put together a backup strategy that runs at the speed of your practice.
6. Can You Help My Firm Put Together a Future-Focused Cloud Productivity Package?
Cloud services offer flexibility and scalability, allowing law firms to access information from anywhere. Your cloud productivity package should reflect that, while also staying secure. Chances are, you’ll use Microsoft cloud productivity suites combined with key legal software.
Your IT partner shouldn’t stop there, however. You need an IT partner that can think through issues like how to deal with AI vis a vis your security needs. With so many new tools on the horizon, find experts who can vet these options and help train your staff on how they can be safely used.
7. What Can We Expect from Your Support Desk?
Providing timely assistance to resolve IT issues is key. Get down to the details about how their help desk works. Is it staffed locally? What are the hours? Where do the after hour calls go? Do you have the ability to escalate to senior engineers and IT support staff, any time of day or night? What kind of charges are there for after hours calls?
The best IT partners will offer 24-hour help desk services staffed with trained experts, with an escalation desk that can interface with your core software providers.
Need IT Support for Law Firms? Integris Can Help.
Having an IT MSP that understands the legal sector is not just beneficial—it’s essential. At Integris, some of our first clients were law firms, and today, we service more than 100 firms across the nation. We understad the nuances of law firm IT. We’d love to help you put together a comprehensive IT strategy that can empower your firm for the future. Want to know more? Contact us at integrisit.com/contact for a free consultation. Typing here.
