Moving to the Cloud: Perspectives from Large and Mid-Sized Law Firms

With more and more firms choosing to move to the cloud, the many benefits—as well as some key challenges—for law firms to weigh up are more important to understand than ever before. A recent survey we conducted among large and mid-sized law firms shines an interesting spotlight on what’s front of mind right now for law firms considering the move to the cloud.

Regardless of firm size, respondents told us that increasing efficiency across the business is the biggest driver. Meanwhile, maintaining control of the firm’s data, is among the primary concerns overall.

Large law firms also highly value the access the cloud provides to richer data, analytics and insights, and the scalability it can give them as they grow. At the same time, law firm leaders know that implementing such a move requires thoughtful consideration and careful planning to ensure a seamless change management process.

For mid-sized firms, continuous software updates and stronger security are other key advantages. However, they are also concerned about the potential costs involved.

Regardless of firm size, a sizable proportion of respondents also said that the ability to incorporate AI capabilities to drive efficiency was also a major benefit of moving to the cloud.

Digging deeper

These big picture insights are useful for decision-making, although they don’t tell the whole story. Understanding what different parts of the business want to achieve, and what their views are, is vital if the transition is to run smoothly and the desired outcomes are to be delivered.

Dig a little deeper and the picture becomes more nuanced, depending on the role of the person we asked.

For example, law firm leaders most value the scalability the cloud offers, but appear to be focused on weighing the costs involved. In other parts of the business – namely finance/accounting and billing – the focus is not on the cost outlay but rather the potential cost savings. For them, what matters most are the efficiency gains.

Likewise, leaders cite data security as another major concern, whereas IT and technology teams are clear that strong security is, in fact, one of the biggest benefits of the cloud.

Reaching common ground

What’s needed, then, is an opportunity for these different leaders and teams to come together and discuss their viewpoints to reach common ground.

Law firm leaders may find their cost concerns allayed if they knew how significant the efficiency gains could be, and how they could translate into greater productivity, profitability, client/job satisfaction, and talent retention.

Recognizing these different perspectives is not just important for decision-making – it feeds into the way the technology is implemented and how the change is managed internally. Ideally, everybody should be on board and pulling in the same direction – but remember that they may not all think the same way to start with, and that’s an issue that should be addressed upfront.

As law firms consider the many facets involved with moving to the cloud, we are partnering closely with our customers to help ready them for this critical transformation and ensure they can have a clear understanding of what the migration process looks like and how to continue building on the ROI in the future.