By Henry B. Chace
Small firms and sole practitioners often wonder whether they are getting the right help at the right price for their technology requirements. There is a wide range of options available for tech support, ranging from ASPs (application service providers) who provide everything, including backup, upgrades, application support and services for a flat monthly or annual fee, to integrators who come on site and work with a designated staff person, or directly with the attorney, and provide hands-on help.
My research for this column taught me that most people find technology help for their business the same way lawyers find clients — by word of mouth. There are many ways to mingle and interact with your peers; that interaction appears to be the way most firms, regardless of size, find people and business to help them with their technology.
For lawyers, a good place to start is with the Massachusetts Bar Association (www.massbar.org). The organization provides educational sessions and opportunities for networking (the human kind, not the technical kind) where folks can meet and greet and share information on all sorts of topics, including: "Who or what do you use for tech support/assistance?"
Another good source for lawyers online is technolawyer. Go to www.technolawyer.com to find out how to get your free subscription to the online newsletters and access to member archives. I am not a lawyer, but I subscribe and am always learning something new and interesting.
Another great organization is the Association of Legal Administrators (www.alaboston.org). There are informative monthly lunches and other educational conferences held regularly. The organization is a terrific resource for anything related to running a law firm, including lots of opinions of how and where to get help with technology.
The International Legal Technology Association is helpful in all things technical in the legal industry (www.iltanet.org). One of the fasting-growing segments of the organization is small firms. There are regional meetings in cities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and very active e-groups on a variety of topics, including a small-firm e-group. Webinars, educational newsletters and white papers are also part of membership. And the annual conference is a four-day technical/educational orgy. You don't need to be technical to belong to and learn from this group.
Vendors, too, can provide technical help and support to lawyers, and I refer to some of them below. This is not a reference list or an endorsement; these are companies or people that have done and continue do work in the legal industry.
MindShift Technologies (www.mindshift.com) can provide round-the-clock support for your applications and data and can take on the management of your technology. It's a compelling idea for folks who do not want to have to deal with operating system upgrades, software application upgrades and patches, backup and restore techniques and the like. The field of ASPS and Software as a Service (SaaS), both known as managed services, is developing rapidly as businesses find the cost and complexity of managing computer systems and applications expensive and difficult. Data stores, i.e., documents, e-mail files and databases, are growing ever larger and more difficult to back up and manage. Small firms and businesses sometimes find it less expensive to pay a fee to manage it all, leaving time to run one's practice or business.
Other companies, such as Toss Corp. (www.toss.com), ESI Inc. (www.esient.com) and Exenet (www.exenet.com), can provide services and advice about managing technology. Each can offer staff members who are familiar with the legal market and the tools lawyers use to make their practice more productive and easier to administer.
There are many others that you will find when you start networking and asking your peers and others how they manage their technology. The great thing about technology is that there isn't any one right answer — just lots of really good questions.
Henry B. Chace is chief information officer at the firm of Burns & Levinson in Boston. MLW
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