4 Reasons Why Cloud Services and Law Firms Belong Together

Cloud environments provide a lot of advantages no matter what industry is served. But, law firms especially benefit from specific features and services that cloud hosting can supply. These four big reasons make it clear that law firms and cloud services belong together:

1)      Email hosting

What would happen if your email host experienced an outage? How much would that affect your ability to work with clients? Beyond that, do you know for sure that your email encryption is strong enough?

The cloud eliminates both of those worries in one fell swoop: It makes email hosting reliable and secure. Attorneys and other employees will be able to access email anytime away from the office, and it is as safe and as dependable as it would be if they were sitting at their desks in the middle of the business day.

Cloud hosting also means that your firm is not storing files on any device, which is a key provision to the Health Care Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In fact, if your law firm services clients that need HIPAA compliance, a cloud environment like Legal Workspace can make that ordinarily cumbersome process easy.

Finally, you have no need to worry about losing email data. Even if a natural disaster or a theft occurs at your law firm’s physical space, your information is safe.

2)      File storage and virtual servers

All of the advantages of email hosting in the cloud apply to file storage in the cloud. Nothing is hosted on your law firm’s devices, so compliance with regulatory oversight is a snap. The storage is reliable and secure.

Cloud providers use virtual servers. That means law firm management can stop thinking about server maintenance, worrying about technology upgrades, and stressing over potential down time. When you take advantage of cloud services, you will always be using the latest and greatest technology.

It also means attorneys and employees have access to the same files, software, and other data any time and anywhere. They may be in court or mediation. They may be traveling or working odd hours. With a cloud environment like Legal Workspace, attorneys can have the exact same work experience in court that they would in their own offices, for example. It saves time, increases productivity, and makes work more convenient.

3)      Back-ups

You can’t predict the future. And, no matter how well you prepare or work to mitigate risk, it is still possible that your workspace will be struck by natural disaster or burglary. Maybe you’ve thought of that and are already doing regular data back-ups…or maybe you’ve let that fall by the wayside.

When you use a cloud environment, back-ups happen automatically. Instead of natural disaster or theft causing business interruption, you have zero downtime. Legal Workspace keeps two weeks’ worth of back-ups, and they store data in two geographically diverse locations – so even if something happens that affects one of those facilities, the other has you covered.

4)      Simplified routine office tasks

You can think of the cloud as your all-around IT solution because most cloud services ensure that your office technology is working, too. That means phones, networks, printers, and scanners stay up and running, and if something goes south, you know who to call.

Law firms that use a cloud environment can concentrate on what they do best: practicing law. When you make the decision to go with the cloud, email services, file storage, security, reliable back-ups, and a simplified office routine are all yours.

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Boost Law Firm Productivity & Revenue

Law firms and technology have made some giant leaps in the last decade or so. Now, there are applications made specifically for law firms that track time, facilitate billing, generate and manage documents, and even help you manage your practice.

We know that you want to take full advantage of the efficiencies and transparency that legal applications can provide to a law firm. That’s why, at Legal Workspace, we make it a priority to host and support the most popular and most effective legal apps on our cloud environment.

 

How it works

Because Legal Workspace was created specifically for law firms and their unique challenges, we understand that firms need certain legal applications to be available anytime and anywhere in order to be able to function at full capacity.

Working with Legal Workspace provides law firms with the opportunity to migrate their existing legal applications to the cloud – or to strategize and make new decisions about what technology they want and need to make work and life easier (and more accurate).

Legal Workspace’s engineers are certified in the top legal applications, so they can provide support if and when it’s needed. They can also consult with clients to identify which apps might work best in their particular situations.

And, Legal Workspace can even license certain legal apps, which simplifies billing.

 

What apps does Legal Workspace host?

Legal Workspace hosts a wide variety of legal applications. Law practice management software includes Amicus Attorney ®, Time Matter®, Needles®, Practice Master®, Thomson Reuters ProLaw®, Juris®, and LawBase®.

Legal document management software includes Worldox® and Microsoft SharePoint®.

Time and billing software includes PCLaw®, Timeslips®, Tabs3®, and Quickbooks®.

Legal document generation automation includes Hot Docs®, ProDoc®, and Amicus Attorney®.

You can find out more about how you can customize your Legal Workspace cloud environment with a variety of legal applications and software here. 

And, what if you have your own proprietary software that you use for practice management, for example? That’s no problem. Legal Workspace can host the software law firms develop.

 

Cloud benefits

When you work with a cloud environment that hosts the legal applications you need, you are using technology to your advantage. And, you get so much more from using the cloud.

Your attorneys and staff can access the programs and data they need from any location at any time. Remote access isn’t the only benefit: You’ll save money on hardware – and its set-up and maintenance. Instead of laying down big money to get started, you’ll have one simple monthly bill.

Your data is continuously monitored and protected. Beyond that, working in the cloud means that recovery of data – if a disaster were to occur – would be that much simpler.

Working with a team like Legal Workspace’s enables you to get the most from your technology. The legal applications that it hosts can propel your law firm to new levels of efficiency and accuracy. With Legal Workspace’s engineers’ help, your law firm can take another giant leap by allowing technology to work for you – so you can concentrate on the business of law.

 

 

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Not All Clouds Are Equal: Select the Best

By now, you’ve heard all about the cloud, how it can keep your data secure, and how using a cloud environment is a more convenient way to work. You’re convinced that working in a cloud environment is the way to go. What’s the next step? How do you get the cloud and make it work for you? Will any cloud do?

As with any other technology, you must be selective. Choose the cloud environment that provides security and support.

Legal Workspace goes way beyond providing just cloud storage for lawyers. Its cloud environment was designed with the particular needs of the legal profession at its forefront. Because of that, Legal Workspace’s cloud environment – and its set-up and support team – provide special features that make it the best choice.

A dedicated team

When you work with Legal Workspace, you aren’t just buying space and an interface. You get to work with a dedicated team that is there to help you with your technology needs. This team is made up of people with legal industry experience.

That legal industry experience allows the team to immediately comprehend and meet your firm’s needs. The team takes an unbiased approach to hosting, and they understand a law firm’s daily workflow in addition to all of the facets of technology. For example, they can help you customize programs and applications for greater efficiency. Beyond that, if you ever need advice as you make technology decisions, the team can contribute CIO-level guidance.

And, certain aspects of tech maintenance become invisible. Just think: You will never need to worry about updating software again – because it will happen automatically.

 

A secure environment

You have your dedicated technology team to set up and maintain your own distinct cloud environment when you work with Legal Workspace. But that’s not all your team can do for you. You can consult with your team about security, too. Because Legal Workspace is designed specifically for use by those in the legal profession, it has developed and locked in place a multi-layer defense system to protect your – and your clients’ – data from exposure.

Legal Workspace uses two-factor authentication, advanced intrusion detection and prevention systems, state-of-the-art antivirus software, and anti-spam solutions as tools in its mission to keep your data safe. The security teams at Legal Workspace are always working to keep your data secure with proactive monitoring, redundancy, and airtight training and policies.

 

A compliant mindset

Legal Workspace takes security and compliance seriously. It knows how important compliance is to you and to your clients. That’s why on-staff security and compliance experts are easy to reach and at the ready to help you make compliance decisions and meet the demands of standards required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).

And, data storage isn’t a mystery with Legal Workspace. Your data is stored in the United States – in Dallas, TX, and Denver, CO – and it will never leave those locations.

When you work with a cloud solution that understands the challenges the legal profession faces, you have the opportunity to take advantage of its expertise. You can work in a cloud environment designed especially for law firms, and you can work with teams with legal industry experience and technology expertise. That makes it so much easier to set up a cloud environment that does what you need it to do.

 

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5 Unexpected Benefits of Cloud for Law Firms

There are so many reasons for law firms to use the cloud, ranging from increased convenience to more robust security. Here are five unexpected benefits of cloud services for law firms:

1. Bump up holiday and summer billable hours

It’s summer time, and the living is easy—right? All of your clients are settled on a beach somewhere, and all of your attorneys are kicking back with their feet on their desks. Maybe in a parallel universe!
In this world, hours need to be kept up during the summer and holidays. With Legal Workspace, remote computing for law firms allows just that: Attorneys can access data and the programs and applications they need whenever and wherever they need them.

2. Eliminate network downtime

Network downtime can be a scourge. It sidelines productivity, it causes headaches, and it costs money. When you transition to using a cloud environment, any fears you had about experiencing network outages and failures can disappear. Legal Workspace, for example, has redundancies in place to ensure that its servers are consistently up and available for customers using its cloud environment. No interruptions. No glitches. No downtime.

3. Automate data back-ups

Stuff happens. One attorney might inadvertently leave her laptop on a plane, another might find his smartphone went missing somewhere between the office and the commute home. And it’s not only lost or stolen devices that could cause problems: Security breaches also pose data loss risks to law firms reviewing and storing sensitive, privileged materials.
Most people know that data back-ups are paramount to guard against data loss. Unfortunately, not many law firms perform regular back-ups as they should. When law firms use the cloud, data gets backed up routinely, thus eliminating worries about data loss.

4. Easy onboarding

Onboarding new employees can be a hassle. You may be introducing multiple unfamiliar applications, programs, and procedures to any new attorney or staff member. Working in a cloud environment such as Legal Workspace can ease that pain because the platform is standard across devices; there’s no need to re-invent the wheel every time someone logs in from a different device or location. Legal Workspace also provides an environment that’s intuitive to use, which reduces trial-and-error interactions while reducing law firm overhead expenses.

5. HIPAA compliance

Law firms and attorneys that work with Private Health Information (PHI) have an additional responsibility: complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Some cloud environments, such as Legal Workspace’s HIPAA Compliant Edition, offer enterprise-grade safeguards for data storage, which meet HIPAA compliance obligations. This type of solution removes the need for large law firms’ IT departments to cobble together a system for additional data protection. It also allows smaller law firms access to security that would otherwise be impossible for them to create and maintain.

When a law firm begins using a cloud environment like Legal Workspace, it instantly benefits from increased convenience, consistency, and security. The cloud can be an immediate painkiller for a lot of common law firm headaches.

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Ideal IT Framework for Law Fims

Money is one important element in the cost of IT, but building and maintaining a system also takes time and knowledge. The Legal Workspace cloud provides firms with the IT infrastructure they need without the guesswork and expense that comes with maintaining an IT department.

The Money: Traditional versus Cloud IT Infrastructure

An average firm building a traditional IT infrastructure from scratch can easily spend $22,000 for the initial set up and $45,000 for annual maintenance and licensing.

Here’s how:

Hardware (average lifespan 3-5 years):

  • — Server and Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS): $11,000-14,000
  • — Backup Appliance with offsite Data Recovery: $5,000

Software:

  • — Windows Server: $2,000 annual licensing
  • — Exchange Server: $4,000 – 6,000

Personnel:

  • — IT support: $43,000 -52,000 per year. Standard IT companies charge $175/hour. It takes about 250-300 hours per year to support hardware.

 

The cost spirals out of control quickly. An outmoded or overloaded infrastructure can seriously hinder a law firm’s success by reducing efficiency and limiting opportunities. High-profile clients in regulated industries often perform cyber security audits and require security certifications before hiring legal counsel.

Legal Workspace operates on a pay-as-you-go model, so customers escape upfront costs. Per-user pricing allows for straightforward scalability — new users can be added in less than 24 hours. Legal Workspace includes hosted Exchange and email, preferred Microsoft Office suite version, data and app storage, nightly redundant backups to US-based tier III data centers, and unlimited tech support between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Mountain Time.

Legal Workspace continually updates software and hardware so firms are always working with the most secure versions. Redundant enterprise-level firewalls, encryption, and secure, temperature-controlled data centers with generator backup make data security stronger than a law firm could implement locally.

 

Eliminating headaches

Problems with IT happen because of equipment failure, lack of know-how, or just plain human error. These brief examples show how using the cloud eliminates bad technology situations:

  1. — Ransomware encrypts computer files so users cannot read files without paying a ransom fee. Legal Workspace retains at least two weeks of backup files so firms infected with ransomware can simply delete infected files and restore backups.
  1. — Legal Workspace clients, such as Berry Odom, report moving to the cloud has reduced their time spent worrying about IT by 75%. That means more time practicing law and less time on the phone with IT.
  1. — Workers are putting in more hours at home and on the go. Legal Workspace’s cloud environment allows users to collaborate safely and securely from any device. If devices are lost or stolen, data is safely stored and protected in the Legal Workspace cloud.

 

Positioning for success

Legal Workspace removes technological barriers so firms can spend more time landing top-tier clients and less time managing IT.

  • — Legal Workspace is a complete cloud solution created exclusively for law firms
  • — Full IT management and maintenance offered
  • — Enterprise-grade security to protect against cyber threats
  • — Access Legal Workspace from anywhere using any device
  • — Military grade data centers located in the US
  • — Host all of your legal and business applications, no on-site servers required
  • — 99% uptime guarantee

 

Legal Workspace is a pioneer in cloud-based work environments and data storage designed specifically for law firms. Learn more or arrange a free demo at 877-713-8302 or sales@legal-workspace.com.

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