The legal industry has long been cautious when it comes to adopting new technologies due to client confidentiality obligations and a culture rooted in tradition. However, the realities of the modern workplace have compelled law firms to embrace technology tools. According to Thomson Reuter’s 2021 Report on the State of the Legal Market, 84 percent of law firms expect to increase their technology investments.
Video meetings, digital collaboration, document sharing and more have become essential to the practice of law, enabling practitioners to increase productivity and improve work-life balance. These tools also help lawyers meet changing client expectations. The Clio 2021 Legal Trends Report found that 79 percent of clients are looking for remote choices when hiring an attorney, up from just 23 percent in 2018.
The increased use of technology comes with a greater need for IT management, support and data protection. IT systems must be reliable and performing optimally to ensure that practitioners can access the client and case data they need. Data must be protected with backups that can be readily recovered. Sensitive information must be secured so that it isn’t compromised by internal or external threats.
Benefits of Managed Services
Managed services can help law firms meet these demands. In a managed services arrangement, law firms outsource IT tasks to a third-party provider. Typically, managed services providers (MSPs) offer system and network monitoring, proactive management, and support for a predictable monthly fee.
Leading MSPs also have expertise in cybersecurity and data protection, enabling them to detect and mitigate threats and ensure that data is backed up and recoverable. This is critically important for law firms, which are prime targets of cybercriminals. In a recent American Bar Association survey, 29 percent of respondents said they had suffered a security breach.
Small law firms that lack in-house IT staff often outsource all management and support tasks to an MSP. However, midsize law firms typically have one or more IT professionals on staff who handle everything from user support to more complex server and networking issues. That doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from managed services.
In many cases, they are stretched thin handling day-to-day tasks and lack the resources to monitor the IT environment around the clock and respond rapidly to any issues that arise. A managed services arrangement can relieve these pressures and free in-house IT staff to work on high-value projects.
The SirviS Solution
SirviS offers a comprehensive suite of managed services that covers all aspects of the IT environment. The SirviS solution is delivered by experienced IT professionals with expertise in the entire technology stack who use advanced tools to monitor and remotely manage customers’ systems, networks, applications and cloud services.
For law firms, SirviS has developed a three-pronged approach to ensuring the highest levels of availability, data protection and security:
SirviS has invested in the people, processes and technology needed to continuously monitor the entire IT environment, including cloud applications and services. We ensure that they are available and performing optimally, and proactively address any issues before they cause downtime.
SirviS helps law firms implement an effective data protection solution that backs up data stored on-premises and in the cloud. The SirviS team tests the backups monthly to ensure that the data can be recovered. If a data loss event occurs, we can assist with the recovery process to minimize downtime and disruption.
Sirvis continuously monitors for security threats in on-premises systems, cloud platforms, and mobile devices and apps. We also perform threat hunting, proactively searching for threats that might go undetected in order to minimize risk.
Qualified MSPs such as SirviS offer fully outsourced options or work in partnership with a law firm’s in-house IT team. Either way, managed services can help maximize the availability, performance and security of a law firm’s critical systems and data.
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