IT support for law firms: what to expect and what to ask

By Bill Ledebuhr, Director of Operations, Fantastic IT

IT support for law firms should do three things: keep your legal software working, control who can open client files, and get people back to work quickly when something breaks. Before you hire a provider, ask for written answers on which applications they support, how they protect client files, how they test backups, how fast they respond, and what the monthly fee leaves out. Then ask them to show you, using the work your firm does every day. The same questions work if you’re hiring your first managed IT services provider or replacing the one you have.

Here’s a quick test for any provider. Say, “Our document system goes down at 3 p.m. and we have a filing due at 5. Walk us through what happens.” A provider that knows law firms will tell you who picks up the phone, who calls the software vendor, and how your attorneys keep working in the meantime.

What’s different about IT support for a law firm?

Three things are different: your deadlines belong to a court, your files belong to your clients, and your daily work runs through legal software that most IT companies rarely see. A slow afternoon is an annoyance at most offices. At a law firm it can mean a missed filing.

Your clients are paying attention too. In the American Bar Association’s 2023 Legal Technology Survey, 27% of respondents said a client had asked to see their firm’s security requirements. At firms of 10 to 49 lawyers it was 41%. Your IT provider is the one who helps you answer that request, so ask to see how they’ve answered it for another firm.

Which systems should your provider support?

Your provider should support every system a matter touches, and the agreement should name each one. That list usually includes your practice management and billing software (Aderant is one example), research and forms tools (such as LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, and Essential Forms), deposition and transcript software (such as Stenograph and DepoView), your document system, Microsoft 365, scanners, and remote access. Many problems involve more than one of those at once, so use this table when you read a proposal.

Area	What to expect	What to ask
Legal applications	A written list of supported products and what “support” covers for each	“Do you troubleshoot our applications yourselves, and when do you call the software vendor?”
Documents and email	Help with filing, search, permissions, and the links between Outlook, Word, and your document system	“Who owns a problem that involves all three?”
Remote work	Access from approved laptops and phones	“Show us how an attorney opens a matter from home.”
Staff changes	One process for adding people and removing access	“How do you confirm that someone who left can no longer sign in?”
Backups	Restores that have been tested	“Show us your last restore test and what it covered.”

Then give them a real problem. An attorney can open Word but can’t save a document to a matter. Ask who investigates, who calls the vendor, and who keeps your office manager updated while it’s being fixed.

What do the confidentiality rules mean for your IT?

They mean your firm has to be able to show who can reach client information and how that access is controlled. You know these rules better than we do, so here is only what touches your IT.

California’s Business and Professions Code makes it a lawyer’s duty “to maintain inviolate the confidence, and at every peril to himself or herself to preserve the secrets, of his or her client.” California’s competence rule adds a duty to keep up with “the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” If you practice in other states, the ABA’s model rule asks for “reasonable efforts” to prevent unauthorized access to client information. All three come down to the same controls.

Ask a provider how they handle each of these:

• Multifactor authentication, a second check when someone signs in. Ask which systems require it, including administrator accounts and remote access.
• Matter permissions. Ask how they restrict a sensitive matter to the people working on it, and how they check that the restriction works.
• Device encryption, which scrambles a laptop’s contents so a thief can’t read them. Ask how they confirm it’s turned on for every laptop that leaves the office.
• File sharing. Ask who can create a sharing link for a client or outside counsel, when the link expires, and how it gets revoked.
• The provider’s own access. Each technician should have a separate, named account. Ask how that access is logged, and how it’s removed when a technician leaves.

What happens when a laptop goes missing?

Your provider should be able to tell you the first three things they’d do and who at your firm they’d call. If they can’t, they don’t have a plan for you yet.

It happens often enough to plan for. In the same ABA survey, 29% of respondents said their firm had experienced a security breach at some point. That number gets quoted as “29% of law firms have had a data breach,” which is wrong. The question included lost and stolen laptops and phones, and the report’s author notes that a security breach “is not necessarily the same thing as a data breach.”

The more useful number is how few firms are ready. Only 34% of respondents said their firm had an incident response plan, and at firms of two to nine lawyers it was 19%. Your provider can write the technical steps. Your firm decides who makes the calls about client notice and legal obligations.

What should you expect from backups?

Expect proof that your files can be restored. A report that says last night’s backup finished tells you very little. The ABA’s report makes the same point: “Don’t just trust the report of a successful backup.”

Ask the provider to put two numbers in writing, and set both around your firm’s deadlines:

• Recovery point objective: how much recent work you could lose, measured in hours.
• Recovery time objective: how long a restore should take.

Then ask which of these they have tested, because each is a different job:

• Restoring one document
• Restoring a mailbox
• Restoring your practice management database

Ask about cloud applications as well: which records can be recovered, how far back, and who can request it.

What should “fast support” mean before a filing deadline?

It should mean a written commitment tied to how serious the problem is. “We respond in 15 minutes” can mean four different things, so ask for a time on each:

• Reply: someone confirms they got your request.
• Working: a technician has started on the problem.
• Workaround: your people can work again, even if the cause isn’t fixed.
• Fixed: the problem is resolved.

The service-level agreement (the part of the contract that sets those commitments) should spell out coverage hours, how to escalate something urgent, when someone comes on site, and what after-hours work costs. It should also say how you report an emergency when email is the thing that’s down.

Then go back to the 3 p.m. question from the top of this post and check their answer against those four times. Ask for a reference from a firm that runs the same applications you do.

What should you ask before you sign?

Ask for five things in writing:

1. The list of supported applications, and what support covers for each.
2. Response commitments by severity.
3. The most recent restore test.
4. Which security tasks are theirs and which stay with your firm.
5. A first-year total and a monthly total, showing what changes when you add a person, replace a computer, or need help after hours.

Your firm should keep ownership of its domain name, its software subscriptions, its data, and an administrator account of its own. Ask how passwords, documentation, backups, and open tickets get handed over if you ever change providers. We’d slow down if a provider can’t say who owns a problem that crosses two applications, can’t show a restore test, or won’t put exclusions in writing.

What does this look like at a real firm?

Levy, Small & Lallas is a law firm we’ve supported for more than a decade. Francis Che of the firm wrote, “For over 11 years, Fantastic IT has been there for us for all of our IT needs.”

He also described their account manager as “very responsive and effective in consulting, managing and improving our IT functions on an ongoing basis.” That’s the part to look for in any provider: one person who knows your firm and keeps improving things between emergencies.

How Fantastic IT helps

We’ve supported Southern California businesses since 1998, and law firms for more than 20 years. Our team is available around the clock, and each firm we work with has an account manager who knows how it works. If you’re comparing providers, bring us the questions above and see how we answer them: IT services for law firms.

Related: How law firms can protect client data in a hybrid world · Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs. E3