Document-centric legal services firms heavily depend on IT's support not only for keeping their offices operational, but also for document and content management. With the recent explosion in the use of electronic evidence as part of discovery, legal firms seek collaboration from IT to help clients efficiently identify, understand and manage electronic evidence at a much faster rate. However, despite this high demand for IT's support, most law firms cannot afford to have an in-house IT team to develop, customize, and maintain niche applications.
Why Law Firms Outsource IT
The business model of law firms is a major barrier to IT staff recruitment. It is based, for the most part, on billable hours. The business model is not scalable, leading to a prejudice against adding non-billable staff. In other words, a law firm would prefer to hire a lawyer who will generate revenue than an IT person who will not. So, the odds are that it will lack the internal IT expertise to apply to internal business improvements. Thus, once a business problem becomes more painful than the cost of solving it, it needs to turn to the outside – to an outsourcer.