In today’s economy every law firm is trying to keep up with the competition, which means learning new ways to do more for less. Since IT can be a major draw on company resources, it makes sense that more partners are looking for ways to minimize the costs of IT. Cloud service providers have become the standard for law firm’s reconstruction plans. IT plays a more critical role in law firms than it did just a few years ago. With mobile technologies on the rise, the cloud travels with partners and associates from the office to the courts, and anywhere in-between.

Exactly, what is the cloud?

According to the University of California – Berkley, “Cloud Computing refers to both the applications delivered as services over the Internet and the hardware and systems software in the datacenters that provide those services. The services themselves have long been referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS), so we use that term. The datacenter hardware and software is what we will call a Cloud.”

A cloud service provider connects law firms to the data centers. They offer several packages to meet the needs of any size company. All cloud providers are not the same, they offer different services and have different levels of technical staff. Also, different providers have different compliance requirements to offer their clients.

Compliance is important and is not fully regulated. However, companies that require HIPAA or other compliance/ legal regulatory requirements need to make sure their provider has the credentials for the job.

Advantages

Moving to a cloud provider allows you to get rid of the servers in your office. A large part of the IT department is essentially moved from your office to a third party facility. The cloud provider will manage all of the servers you require, and keep up on necessary software upgrades and installations, and give an added layer of security to your network.

Providers have analytic monitoring to detect slow bandwidth issues, corrupt files, security breaches and much more. The tools available to cloud service providers can detect possible weaknesses in your network before those weaknesses become failures. This ability of detection gives the provider an opportunity to swap out hardware or update software before a total failure occurs, which in turn keeps your network up and running almost all of the time. And if a failure does occur the provider can have your network running faster than your IT guys could have. This reduces the man hours associated with server downtime and reduces the loss of office production. Find out more about the advantages of partnering with a cloud service provider:

Security

Providers have some of the best security tools available. They also have encryption levels that match those encryption tools used by banks. Experienced cloud service providers, like TOSS, work with enterprise- to small-sized legal firms. In some cases, this means high-end expensive software packages can be purchased by smaller firms for a reasonable price. The provider can purchase the base package and pay extra for additional licenses. By purchasing the licensing, smaller firms gain the benefits of top of the line software packages.

There is no doubt that your firm needs to be in the cloud. Mobility options, security, and software availability are all excellent reasons to be in the cloud. Not to mention, clients expect to have to access their information via client portals. The world is evolving into the cloud and to succeed you need to be there. Get a free assessment to see how the cloud can save you money today.