Supporting Digital Transformation for Law Firms and Solicitors

A transformation is taking place in law firms as the sector begins to embrace digitalisation. The Times claims this has been spurred by the need to work remotely during the pandemic and that “law firms are recalibrating how they deliver legal services to clients deploying digital services and data at the core.” (December 2021). This is why Pro Drive IT offers comprehensive IT support for solicitors across Surrey.

There is now a high demand in the legal sector to implement IT infrastructures that can support the growing needs of law firms across the UK. Providing end-to-end solutions and covering IT specialisations including cyber security, communications, cloud services and disaster, recovery and business continuity, Pro Drive is ideally placed to support the legal sector through this digital transformation.

Recently, we partnered with the law firm, Openshaw & Co, migrating their IT storage to a cloud-based service. This solution extended their IT capabilities and ensured they were meeting with the most stringent compliance requirements. Our researched and thoroughly tested solution was able to secure the confidential information of Openshaw & Co’s many blue-chip clients and proved invaluable during periods in which employees were working from home and accessing files remotely.

Data Protection For Law Firms and Solicitors

Law firms are privy to some highly confidential and very sensitive information. This information must be expertly secured with the most robust software. Not only is Pro Drive IT able to source the best cyber security solutions for your law firm, but we can install and maintain these.

Due to the speed at which technology moves, security strategies and systems must be regularly updated and tested to ensure their stringency. We find the best solution available to make your IT security as robust as possible and we also ensure it stays that way.

Cloud Solutions And IT Communications Support For Law Firms and Solicitors

Communication technology has experienced huge growth in the last few years, driven by the need for employees and clients to be able to connect and collaborate. Sometimes even across continents. Technology has enabled us to work from almost anywhere, at any time, but as a traditionally paper-reliant industry, the legal sector has not yet been at the forefront of this. However, as the requirement to work remotely spreads across all industries, law firms are looking to bolster their IT capabilities and migrate to systems that are more flexible and accessible.

Remote technology is not just for those businesses whose employees sometimes work from home. Digitalisation and cloud-based solutions enable employees to access essential files on trains, from the courtroom, in client boardrooms, on the go and from practically anywhere. With the right IT infrastructure, there’s never a need to ‘have to check that when you’re back in the office’.

Law firms we have worked with find the capabilities of cloud technology and our other software solutions empowering. We aim to utilise communications software at the forefront of innovation to increase productivity and take unnecessary obstacles away from your ability to focus on and meet the immediate needs of your clients.

Get in touch with Pro Drive IT today and we’ll be glad to share with you some of the phone and video conferencing solutions that could keep you better connected. We can also introduce you to some of the emerging collaborative software that brings together the talents and knowledge of your team to achieve your goals.

End-to-end IT Support For Law Firms

Pro Drive IT have accumulated the knowledge needed to work on IT strategy, cyber risk assessments and under large migration projects, however, we also support our law firm clients through their day-to-day IT operations. Providing crucial IT Support, you can rely on Pro Drive IT to keep your business running smoothly and ensure your data and systems are secure and accessible.

Please complete the contact form on this page to find out more about what we can do for your law firm.

The benefits of IT support for Legal Firms

It can feel pretty isolating when you’re on your own with managing your company’s own IT systems, particularly if your area of expertise is law, not computers! That’s where your business can really benefit from IT support, working alongside you to provide assistance in the following ways:

• Providing peace of mind by correctly installing and maintaining your IT systems to keep it working safely and effectively, preventing problems in the future.
• Keeping the threat of cyber-attacks at bay. We can help secure your systems, identify threats and vulnerabilities, and ensure that you and your team know what to watch out for.
• Implementing cloud-based solutions to keep everyone working together, wherever they are. If flexible working is something you’d like to explore, but a legacy IT system is holding you back, we can help.
• Making down time less of a catastrophe by working with you to develop disaster and business continuity strategies.
• Keeping your team and your customers connected through communication systems that can adapt to hybrid working.
• Making IT less of a worry with 24/7 support.

How to Switch Your Law Firm IT Support to Pro Drive IT

A full audit of your current IT infrastructure and capabilities will be conducted by our knowledgeable team without any disruption to your daily business proceedings. We will then make recommendations for ways to strengthen your systems based on the informed conclusions we have drawn from your audit. Specifically tailored to suit your specific needs, we will then design a bespoke IT support solution for you. We work passionately alongside our clients to drive you forward through a perfect IT strategy, ensuring your law firm is well future-proofed.

When you switch to Pro Drive IT, you will have access to expert advice and IT support on a daily basis, ensuring your IT infrastructure is highly functional and fully secure a all times. To find out more about our IT support offering for lawyers, book a call or video chat with us via the contact form below.

For detailed insight into the current performance of your IT systems, including areas that are and are not performing, and for help understanding how to improve your existing setup, book our 90-minute discovery workshop via the contact form below.

Common Law Firm Challenges

Staff and Recruitment

Completing enough billable hours is the one of the single most important parts of legal practice. Understaffed law firms tend not to bill enough hours due to work taking a long time, leading to slow growth and causing tensions with clients. However, the process of solving staffing issues is often not easy. Recruitment efforts can last for many months before the right candidate is found, not to mention the expense involved in recruiter fees and the hours spent interviewing candidates.

Even in law firms without staffing issues, employees can still pose an issue for businesses if they have not completed proper or recent IT training.

In companies without a formal IT department, staff without any formal IT training can end up spending excessive amounts of time tackling IT issues instead of focusing their efforts on their areas of expertise, leading to a drop in company productivity and harming employee morale. It can even lead to partners needing to get involved in IT, leading to client work and other areas of business progression suffering.

On the other hand, for companies that do keep a formal IT department, recruiting adequately skilled staff can be difficult, expensive, and time consuming. As the business develops, recruiting more IT staff will become necessary, slowing this growth and costing the company more in recruitment fees. When new software systems are introduced, existing staff may also resist embracing the change or struggle to adapt to the new systems, putting a significant strain on the company.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

As AI has become more prolific in recent years, its use has become much more widespread. In fact, a recent government poll found that at least a third (34%) of the British public utilise AI on at least a monthly basis. Naturally, the general public’s use of AI has led to people turning to AI chatbots and similar for legal advice, even though this is enormously ill-advised.

But it doesn’t stop there. AI has come on rapidly in recent years, with AI automation possessing an endless number of capabilities. This has led to some of the work law firms bill for being completed by automations, decreasing the number of tasks law firms are able to bill for.

GDPR and Online Safety

GDPR and cybersecurity concerns are of utmost importance for law firms, not just for compliance purposes, but for maintaining a relationship of trust and respect with your clients.

Without proper personal data management systems in place, law firms can find it very challenging to comply with GDPR. From bank details to personal medical information and confidential contracts, storing this data without a secure system in place puts law firms at serious risk of a data breach.

Due to the highly sensitive financial data handled by law firms, cybercrime is a high probability, making a secure, encrypted, password-protected system essential. Without this, the ever-sophisticating cybercrime techniques of today pose a serious threat.