Reasons Why Cloud Computing is the Great Tools for Law Firms

With 10% of organizations believing that they have an IT infrastructure that is fully capable of handling data exchange among mobile devices and taking full advantage of social media and data analytic, it is not difficult to understand why cloud computing is the perfect tool for any sized business, more so small and medium law firms.  But what precisely does this technology deliver and how does your law firm stand to benefit from it?

Lowered Operating Costs

Just how much will it cost to move your present IT operation to the Cloud?  That would depend on the extent of your IT operation.  In general though, as much as 25% of businesses have reported a reduction in their IT expenses when they shifted to Cloud computing.  The savings are quite significant enough that many other organizations from various industries are likewise doing the move.

Many small- to medium-sized law firms are quite happy to do away with the cost of purchasing and maintaining a dedicated server.  In fact, for many law firms of this size, it is not even necessary to maintain a dedicated server.

One of the great things with moving to the Cloud is that these size of law firms can easily scale their IT operations based on their current needs without having to spend much on infrastructure, manpower, and training.  All they have to do is pay for what they use, which means increasing or decreasing IT capability would not pose any problems financially or physically.

Completion Time

How much time should be dedicated to completing a case or project?  For small- and medium-sized law firms, time can be a very expensive commodity considering the limited manpower resources at their disposal.

So in terms of completion time, what is the greatest contribution of cloud computing?  It is the ability to innovate.  The technology simply provides too many options and choices to overlook.  Projects or cases can be handled even out of the office.  Collaboration can be done without regard for the physical location of the parties involved.

Clients can get hold of their lawyers at any given time without needing to meet up face-to-face, which gives lawyers the convenience to get more work done.  As a result, the efficiency and productivity increases.  This is consistent with any other industry using Cloud computing where as high as 55% have reported increased work efficiency.

Improved Collaboration

Lawyers are all too familiar with the concept of collaboration.  Exactly how does Cloud computing help promote collaboration?  This is done through the capability of Cloud computing to be launched on a wide variety of platforms, not just the traditional Personal Computer or laptop.

Therefore, as long as a lawyer is connected to the Internet, it does not matter if he is using a tablet, laptop, or smartphone, collaboration can be achieved even with a group of people.  How is this possible?  You have to remember that data is not stored locally, but on the Cloud.  This makes it easier to share data and information virtually.  Editing documents and sharing them afterwards can be done using Google Drive or Dropbox.

The great thing is that changing, amending, commenting, and even suggesting can all be done simultaneously without having to wait for one lawyer to finish everything up.  This drastically shortens the process of sending documents back and forth.  Online collaboration is further enhanced by the ability for greater mobility allowing lawyers to continuously work while on the go.

Better Opportunities

Many law firms are now faced with dealing with huge amounts of data.  Cloud computing allows small- and medium-sized law firms to benefit from access to this data by creating better opportunities to collaborate with other lawyers, but also in the area of increased engagement with clients.

Data gathering is an essential part of the preparation for a case and the more data a law firm can gather, the more insights can be generated from the data.  This presents significant opportunities for law firms in dealing with both structured and unstructured data.

How you make use of all these advantages is an entirely different thing.  Now that you know the reasons why Cloud computing is the perfect tool, you simply need the right management technology to go with it.

Call NexStep today for management free technology for lawyers and get the solutions for your data security problems in the cloud.