Cloud computing for lawyers not dummies! Part Three - Economics

In our last article we covered cloud service and deployment models. In this piece, we will focus on the reasons for adopting cloud and some of the economic arguments underlying the technology choice.

A recent Legal IT survey conducted in conjunction with InPractice www.inpractice.co.uk highlighted some great reasons for cloud adoption.



Benefits of cloud adoption

Cost was the number one driver followed by client collaboration and mobile access. So does cloud really drive down ownership costs? Let's explore some of the financial benefits of cloud adoption...

CapEx - certainly you can expect a significant reduction in Capex (aside from portal connection fees) as dependency on "owned" (read "up front cost") servers reduces or disappears based upon whether the IT infrastructure resides partially or wholly elsewhere.

Hardware - Can be more fully utilised, smoothing out demand and leveraging economies of scale from your chosen cloud provider.

Power - Less hardware onsite equals less power consumed. Save energy and you'll be greener too!

Resilience - Typical clouds have several locations for their data centers, and they mirror your data and applications across at least two of them. You don't have to provision for duplicate hardware in case of failure/outage.

Staffing costs - although a somewhat taboo subject, cloud computing does reduce the need for on-premise staff or more positively allows sensible redeployment of the in-house IT resource pool.

So what's the bottom line? Industry analysts predict a cost saving somewhere between 20-30% when cloud is fully embraced.

Moving away from legacy technology and the cost argument, we believe that the real benefits come in the form of improved collaboration for lawyers and their clients. A cloud based portal approach opens up the possibility to communicate seamlessly from mobile, tablet and desktop. Combine this with a more compelling user interface and everybody wins with an enjoyable experience.

In summary, competitive advantage can be gained by adopting Ad Coelum Technology:

• Reducing total cost of ownership through a cloud subscription pricing model
• Strong integration with legacy on-premise solutions and Microsoft applications such as Office and SharePoint
• Vastly improved connectivity for mobile scenarios, incorporating social media features and enhanced collaboration with clients

Cloud computing for lawyers, not dummies! Part Two!

In our first article on cloud computing, we settled on "the cloud is the internet as a business or consumer platform". Of course, the cloud can be deployed in a number of ways and in this blog we will walk you through the different types of cloud service and deployment models.

Several good descriptions of cloud technology exist but we found this one by the American National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) very useful. You can read it here in this concise 3 page pdf.

Service Models

Firstly, let's talk about service models. Service models refer to the capabilities of a cloud service. The three most common are Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

• SaaS: The ability to use a software package deployed by the service provider. Think Gmail!
• PaaS: A development platform hosted by the service provider to facilitate rapid design, testing, and deployment of new applications. Think Azure! Please find a neat video here
• IaaS: Can be viewed as the opposite of SaaS, whereby the service provider only delivers hardware resources (network, compute, storage) required to run a customer’s operating systems and applications. Think Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud!

Deployment Models

Secondly, let's discuss deployment models. Deployment models refer to the way in which the service is provisioned. There are 4 primary cloud deployment models - Private, Community, Public and Hybrid. 

• Private: The service is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organisation
• Community: The service is provisioned for exclusive use by a community of organisations
• Public: The service is provisioned for open use by the general public
• Hybrid: A mix of two or more private, community and public clouds

 

Ad Coelum Technology Models

So, what models do we intend to use to deliver our innovative cloud platform to forward thinking law firms?

In terms of our service model, we intend to begin with SaaS, making it easy for our customers to start using our software and allowing us to ensure that their experience is fully managed. As our platform evolves we also fully intend to leverage PaaS, exposing more and more of the platform to our customers, especially our integration engine powered by Windows Azure Service Bus technology.

From a deployment perspective, our solutions will be provisioned as a private cloud on a single-tenant basis, ensuring customer data remains secure and completely separate. This model also enables upgrades to solutions to be managed on a per-customer basis.

We have selected the Microsoft Windows Azure cloud to help us realise our vision to create a more productive legal profession by evolving case & matter management utilising cloud, mobile and social technology to provide a rich and compelling user experience. Below are just a handful of the fantastic benefits we and our customers will enjoy from a cloud platform like Windows Azure:

• Global footprint - Azure data centres provide a truly global cloud network
• High availability - 99.9% or higher SLA across all Azure services
• Only pay for what you use - resources are only billed when in use
• Ability to scale-out - hardware procurement becomes a thing of the past!

We're all in it together...

As an innovative new cloud technology company, we will also be practicing what we preach! Below are just a few of the many cloud technologies we will be using to run our business:

• Windows Azure for internal applications and of course, our legal software!
• Office 365 for content management, email and other forms of communication
• Dynamics CRM Online for business development
• Team Foundation Service for managing our cloud software development lifecycle

So there you have it. As we develop our business, we will experience the advantages and opportunities of cloud computing right along-side our customers. After all we can't promote the cloud as a means of business advantage if we don't live it and breath it ourselves!

Law Firms - Matter Management vs. Case Management – a Continuum?

Modern lawyers still spend an unwarranted amount of time looking for information and attending to administrative tasks. And, if the old adage is true that time really is money, lawyers should be embracing ways to lessen the amount of unproductive time they devote to such details. Technology is one way forward and case & matter management software has undoubtedly improved front-office productivity over the last two decades.

You often hear folks refer to case management software when they are really talking about matter management software. Are they really that dissimilar? The pertinent answer is yes and no!

In reality, matter management is more akin to low volume, high value case management as opposed to high volume, low value work normally associated with traditional case management. It can actually be viewed as a continuum in today’s world with systems growing from one end of the spectrum i.e. value to embrace volume as a firm rolls-out and supports its relevant practice areas. 
 

Matter management systems are valuable assets and often deployed in a more pervasive manner than large-scale volume case management systems. A matter management system affords you the ability to run thorough conflict checks across all of a law firm's current matters for ethical and business conflicts of interest before a matter is ever opened. Anti-money laundering checks can be made to check that your customers are who they say they are. The system permits you to open a client/matter number or billing number and assign the lawyers and other timekeepers to the particular case in question. A matter management system may well have more rigid controls so data that could potentially affect the matter's specifics, such as name, fee rates and unique billing number, cannot be altered. In addition, embedded time recording functionality is an increasingly common feature of matter management systems. This allows users to track the time associated with a specific matter and pass it directly into the PMS for a billing cycle.

We may take the above for granted but Cloud-based matter management can also be brought to bear in a number of other important activities:

• It provides a perfect opportunity to create one version of the truth when firms merge and/or systems are consolidated
• New lines of business can be quickly set up and powered by new technology unimpeded by legacy systems
• High value practice areas can be become more automated through modern workflow technology

Food for thought? At the end of the day, we think matter management is akin to high value case management and case management per se is the volume end of the business! But to really leverage the power of this software, we believe the cloud is the answer! Our Matter Management offering powered by Windows Azure will reduce maintenance and other infrastructure costs, improve collaboration between lawyers and their clients and bring about a revolution in mobile device access that will see productivity rise to new levels – critical to success in an increasingly competitive legal market.

Who is looking? Our analytics data...revealed!

Following the launch of the Ad Coelum Legal Technology website at the beginning of March, we have been monitoring usage through Google Analytics. This is standard practice and helps us to optimise the site in order to provide a better experience to our visitors.

What is not standard, is to publish this information to the outside world...we have very high standards...but we are not a standard company. To thank our initial visitors, we would like to give something back by sharing a few stats - after all, they are about you!

The following information has been taken from our first month of trading. Although this only accounts for a small time window, it does provide a fresh up-to-date snapshot of the devices and technologies we, the legal technology industry, are using right now - we hope you find it useful...

Mobility - Apple rules

Visitors using mobile devices

The number of visitors using a smartphone or tablet was relatively low at 12% demonstrating that laptops and desktops are by the far the most popular devices used to access a legal technology website. Unsurprisingly, 90% of the mobile visitors were using Apple devices.

Operating System - Microsoft still dominant

Operating system used

On the operating system front, Apple have added a further 18% of visitors on top of their iOS devices through OSX machines such as MacBook and iMac. This still leaves Microsoft with a hefty 71% share of the overall OS usage (including 1% from Windows Phone). A very different story than a decade ago, but Windows is still the dominant force by far.

Browser - Google makes waves, Firefox reduced to ripples

Web browser used

We found this one quite surprising. Internet Explorer was still used by almost half our visitors. Chrome stole 16.6% leaving  Firefox with only 6%. 'Others' included IE with Chrome Frame, Android Browser and Opera Mini. There is little doubt that Internet Explorer is making significant progress with each release (and the barrage of TV advertising can't have hurt either), but we will be watching with great interest to see if Chrome and Safari eat their way into that 51.2%.

A final thought

As we build out our Windows Azure-based platform, we remain very open minded about the types of devices our end users will use to connect to our applications and services. The one thing we are certain about, is that the end-user experience needs to improve in legal technology. Fortunately for us as the new kids on the block, our cutting edge cloud architecture and standards driven REST API's will allow us to lead the way, no matter which devices become dominant among tomorrows lawyers.