Law firm IT leaders give their view: Peter Birley (Browne Jacobson)

27
Jan
2011

Geoff Zodda

The year 2011 will bring a lot of change to the legal technology industry. We at Legal IT Professionals wondered how law firm IT leaders look at the near future. To find out, Geoff Zodda put together ten questions and selected 5 IT leaders  from major law firms to answer them.

Today, it is Peter Birley's turn to answer the questions. Peter is IT Director at Browne Jacobson.

Will the role of the CIO/CTO change in law firms as some experts have predicted in the next year?
I don’t believe the role will change in that timescale but there is no doubt it will change over the next five years and become more business focused.

Will major IT projects that had previously been postponed as a result of the recent economy, such as upgrades, rollouts, and conversions, going to be re-initiated?
There is a little bit more optimism but still caution on the economy and therefore I believe we will see some movement in IT investment particularly where it is essential maintenance or there is a fast return on investment.

Will current trends across the legal industry drive new technologies to emerge or come to the forefront in the next year? 
Yes the drive for efficiency and collaboration will see social networking and mobile/ flexible working technologies to emerge.

Will the majority of firms within the AMLaw 250 develop SharePoint or other web-based portals in-house?
Yes I believe that SharePoint is coming of age.

Where will be the major areas of growth departmentally within law firm IT groups? 
Business analysis, project management and system development areas will be the growth areas.

Which of the major software vendors will have the greatest impact on law firms’ spending in 2011?
I believe the one to watch is Lexis Nexis with their announcement of working with the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform on a legal specific practice and financial management system although whether that impacts 2011 spending is unknown at this stage. Microsoft products will always feature particularly with Windows 7 and Office 2010 on people’s radar and people dipping their toes into using SharePoint for Document Management and portal communication.

Are law firms going to continue with VoIP technology or is there another trend on the rise within telecommunications?
The wider use of Unified communications in its full sense will continue to rise over the next few years.

What types of applications will begin to be utilized that haven’t been widely used in the past?
As a result of the economy or technological improvements or maybe in some cases both we will see Voice recognition , Unified communications including more use of smaller Video conferencing units, Social media tools and more mobile working applications.

As law firms continue to take on sizable litigation matters, will firms build up their litigation and e-discovery support practices internally, or outsource services?
It will depend on the type of practice but generally unless their e-discovery work is of a certain size and regularity they will outsource the services.

Will firms centralize their IT departments or will they build them within the individual offices?
The core of the technology department will be centralized but we will see more IT resource deployed in the individual offices in order to better align and understand the business needs.