Is your law firm ready for digital modernization?
Law firms are under pressure from soaring workloads, rising cyber threats, and the rapid adoption of legal AI. Digital modernization is the key to staying secure and competitive
Key takeaways
- Law firms face a triple bind: Historic workload increases, rising cybersecurity risks, and competitive pressure from legal AI adoption demand urgent action.
- Digital modernization is the solution: Upgrading IT architecture, implementing AI-enabled tools, and hardening cybersecurity can help firms work smarter and stay compliant.
- The time to act is now: With AI reshaping client expectations and billing models, firms that modernize early will gain efficiency, security, and a competitive edge.
Law firms are famous for “burning their candle at both ends.” But if it seems like the stress and demands are getting worse, it’s not your imagination. With the advent of legal AI, many law firms find themselves in a triple bind. Consider these facts:
- Workloads are at historic highs. According to Clio’s Legal Trends Report, the number of cases at U.S. law firms rose 25% between 2016 and 2023, and the billable hours rose 35%.
- Your firm’s cyber-safety has never been more at risk. The year 2024 was among the worst years ever for cyberattacks on law firms, and the average cost of a data breach for a law firms rose to $7.5 million.
- Your competition is already using legal AI to compete. According to Clio’s latest survey, 79% of law firms reported using legal AI in some capacity. In the future, Clio predicts that 75% of law firm hourly billing could be replaced by legal AI—forcing firms to provide better, faster, and higher-level service and consulting than ever before.
At first glance, these issues may seem too big and systemic to fix. But in reality, you can significantly affect all three of these issues with a unified strategy: digital modernization for your law firm.
What is digital modernization, and why does it matter to law firms now?
The concept of digital modernization is a broad one, but at its root, it’s all about bringing your law firm up to speed with today’s technology. This operational upgrade is not just for the sake of having the latest tools, but to work smarter, serve clients better, and stay competitive.
At Integris, when we talk about operational maturity for our law firm clients, we’re including priorities such as these:
- Vetting new AI-enabled productivity tools and processes to improve client communication, case management, and the overall administrative operations of your firm
- Paving the way for effective data sourcing in the age of AI, creating permission levels for data that will ensure fewer leaks and better data sets for AI parsing
- Hardening cybersecurity against growing sophisticated threats, including a responsible IT architecture that protects your systems end to end, as well as advanced cybersecurity training to prepare staff for malicious, AI-enabled deep fakes and ransomware
- Building a future-focused compliance program that meets the guidelines for safe data handling set by the American Bar Association, as well as the industry-specific regulations your clients must adhere to, such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for healthcare, Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) for manufacturing, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for those handling customer purchase data, and more.
CTA: Take a deeper dive into the AI-enabled future for law firms with our latest report.
Compare your firm against the latest best practices for legal industry IT in our new free report
Isn’t all this digital modernization too much for my firm to handle at one time?
In a word, no.
It’s true, for most legal practices, harnessing this innovation requires a total rethinking of data allocation, client experience, and what your people can accomplish day to day with their technology. But powerful, intuitive platforms like Microsoft 365 are already weaving powerful AI tech into their standard tools. Still other platforms are designed specifically for law firms, making the leap to legal AI as simple as a few well-considered software subscriptions. And of course, your staff and clients are likely to be using AI tools on the personal devices and phones they bring into your practice every day.
The window of opportunity is open now to get ahead of these innovations. With the right IT partner, you can get your arms around the risks and rewards of this new tech. Hire a legal managed service provider (MSP) with access to fractional chief information security officers (CISOs). They can help you vet the tools you need, handle onboarding/inventory, and set up a compliant monitoring and governance program with all the right documentation.
Source: “Thomson Reuters’ future of professionals report,” July 2024
Law firm software: exciting progress on the horizon
Legal AI is reshaping law firm software with new capabilities that boost efficiency and insight. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the new law firm case management software, billing software, and AI for legal that can boost your operational maturity:
- Law firm case management software: Organizes case files, automates workflows, and provides dashboards to track deadlines, budgets, and progress.
Examples: Miratech Casecloud, CARET Legal - AI for Legal Research & Document Review: Quickly scans and summarizes legal texts, helping you find relevant case law and statutes faster.
Examples: Casetext CoCounsel, ROSS Intelligence, Harvey AI - NLP for case law analysis: Uses natural language processing to identify patterns and key passages in legal precedent.
Examples: Lexis+AI, Westlaw Precision - Predictive analytics: Analyzes past case data to forecast outcomes, timelines, and judge or court behavior.
Examples: Premonition, Lex Machina - Chatbots and client interaction: Handles intake, FAQs, and scheduling through automated, conversational interfaces.
Examples: DoNotPay, LawDroid - Billing and workflow automation: Tracks time, generates invoices, and manages tasks with minimal manual input.
Examples: Clio, Practice Panther - AI + BI for key performance indicators (KPIs): Combines AI with business intelligence to monitor firm performance and client profitability through custom dashboards.
Examples: PowerBI+Clio, NetDocuments, Litify
While productivity and business intelligence platforms are taking a major leap forward, so are cybersecurity platforms. Cybersecurity tools are more comprehensive and integrated than ever before.
At Integris, we recommend the Responsible IT Architecture framework with tools designed to work together, fully integrated onto a client portal that allows you to track all your cybersecurity KPIs, monitoring, and reporting in a unified view. Today’s tools don’t just catch malicious attacks in progress; they isolate the threat, remediate the damage, generate documentation, and recommend actions to be taken to get ahead of emerging threat patterns.
Ready for a better operational maturity model at your law firm? Integris can help.
The first step on your modernization journey starts with the right legal MSP—before you buy law firm software. Integris can help you with AI readiness, evaluating your system for vulnerabilities and shoring up your compliance operations in advance of new technology investments for your firm. Our Copilot for M365 readiness assessment is just one of tools we have to ensure you’re leveling up your infrastructure appropriately.
