THE VERDICT

Law firms are ready for a hosted solution of their technology platform

This document is primarily addressed to the small to medium size law firm that wants to compete with the tier one and two firms. The assumption is that the firm does not wish to be disadvantaged but rather hold an advantage over the larger firms with its technology platform and client service delivery.

Our audience represents approximately 92% of law firms across the continent although many will not be progressive and identify the competitive nature of legal services and the new market conditions applying today.

There has been a lot of talk and misinformation published on computer hosting and we work through the components of the solutions offering we provide the legal profession.

Many commercial enterprises have commenced moving their technology to an outsourced or partially outsourced method over the past 5 years.

Law firms have been slow to move. Why?

Mainly because solutions were not available at an economical price point and the firms didn’t understand what hosting was all about. Separately, the issues of client security have always been tantamount in the minds of a conservative profession.

With the extensive usage of the Internet by all areas of business today, there is now a high confidence level engendered in this delivery vehicle that has resulted in its broad adoption as an essential tool of business.

Many enterprises have dabbled in the use of Internet services and software delivery via this medium and had tremendous success with the experience.

Legal business owners are waking to the fact they are not in the I.T. business but rather the business of law where they want all personnel performing billable activities and not fixing computers.
Lawyers no longer have the appetite for allowing external I.T. people playing the blame game and nor do they want engineers with screwdrivers attending their offices on a regular basis at $130-$180 per hour fixing computer hardware and software issues.

Further, we are of the opinion that lawyers (as business owners) do not want to know about the spaghetti wiring or the hard disk capacity required for his/ her firm or the SPAM filters or the Microsoft licencing required or the services costs to manage the incremental upgrades every-time Microsoft coughs. This is all before the legal practice management application is added to the mix.

At Miser we offer the first opportunity for Australian law firms to deploy the award winning LEAP software on a user pays hosted model.

What does all this mean?

Simply stated it means that a law firm can, through a secure browser connection, allow each operative access to the firm’s data from anywhere, anytime without the need to purchase costly on-site (or off site) infrastructure.

The law firm no longer has to have Servers on site but rather it can use the massive drives Miser deploys in its data-centre at Powertel in the Sydney CBD. The back up and security of data is guaranteed as information is replicated in many places for redundancy purposes. There is no limit to the storage that can be used. Under our hosted model these issues are seamlessly handled for the firm.

The firm retains its screens and printers and we run a dedicated and secure private network link to the office. The firm can use its current ADSL connection if it is not too concerned about security.

How is the pricing model worked out for hosted solutions?

There are two major components/considerations with any legal technology deployment in hosted solutions. The first is the hardware infrastructure back end requirements with the communications links and secondly the applications the law firm wants to deploy. In the case of the infrastructure and Microsoft licencing these are normally priced according to the specific requirements of each firm but in essence on a USERS PAYS basis.

You pay for what you use. If a new user is added you pay. If you don’t use the system during any one month you don’t pay. This does not apply to the LEAP software that has a different subscription model.  

How do costs compare with in house installations?

Overall the costs should be 20-30% less than an in house installation in terms of direct costs but the big savings come in the personnel area.

The firm no longer needs internal staff to worry about technology issues.

Over my time I have seen many instances of lawyers with a charge out rate of $300-$400 per hour spending hours on technology issues down to trying to reboot computers. In a firm of 6 or 7 people it would not be uncommon for a staff member to spend 20-30% of his/ her time on computer related matters. It goes without saying each staff member is a huge overhead to the firm if the focus is shifted away from the main business.

The MISER – LEAP offering

As of January 2008 LEAP has launched LEAP Office, the first, comprehensive and complete solution for small law firms that enables a firm to pay a subscription fee per month for its software. LEAP Office can be acquired directly through LEAP or through Miser as an holistic package.

Miser will charge a hosting fee for LEAP Office in line with the law firm head count, technical and disk requirements. We will offer Microsoft licencing for you as part of the package. 

Under the Application Service Provider (ASP) hosting model, Microsoft does not allow us to use any existing licences the firm may already own. This means you no longer have to worry about purchasing Microsoft software into the future as we offer their software as a subscription model as well.

As Microsoft increment their software and the LEAP software allows, we provide the new versions for you as part of our service.

These are seamlessly managed without your firm involvement in labour.

Indicative costs

All LEAP pricing is published and openly declared so it becomes easy to identify their pricing.

Miser charges, as an average, $8 per user per day ex GST as an all up cost for hosting the applications of LEAP that you select together with Microsoft licencing, disk storage and communication costs to that user. This cost also embraces desktop support but not hardware support unless the unit was acquired through Miser. In the situation where we supply equipment, namely screens and printers, if a fault arises we send a replacement overnight. A user can log on to another PC or laptop in the meantime without any downtime and or redirect work to another printer.  

How do we get our data across to your Service?

An automatic data migration can normally take place for your document and email files. If you are bringing information from a foreign practice management system where accounting data structures and attributes are unique, this will need to be discussed individually.

LEAP offers some automatic conversions of well known accounting products.

New firms commencing business just start keying from day one directly into LEAP through an access we provide. Effectively we open a new client account.

What are the set up costs for a new firm converting from a current I.T. provider?

The initial set up costs of a new firm are determined on a one on one basis and a one time cost is applied.

These are not excessive but there is definitely time required to ensure you are converted to the new environment without pain. There maybe training involved and this needs to be assessed. Existing LEAP clients with current in house I.T. deployments represent a simple move in terms of training and can be operative almost immediately.

What do we do with our in-house Servers?

These are now obsolete and you never have to purchase one again. If a Server is out of warranty this is a good point to change to a hosted model from a cost justification standpoint.

Who do I call with a problem?

Miser accepts a first point of call. We have several people on our help desk at our Lane Cove offices that will address any issue. A qualified person will diagnose the problem and if it is determined to be a LEAP specific matter we will pass you through to the LEAP National Help Desk.

Under your subscription service Miser and LEAP cover all help desk and maintenance calls as a component cost. There are no separate recurring charges or typical 20% annual maintenance charges.

Advantages in the Miser / LEAP hosted model

· The law firm has an identified and predictable monthly cost for its technology platform.

· All technical and software issues are managed for the firm in a holistic manner via a single point for all calls.

· All of the firm’s data is backed up unattended and compliance issues met for insurance purposes.

· The software solution is Law Society compliant for each state of Australia

· The firm can focus its resources on income producing and not technical issues.

· The Users Pays model enables the firm to pay only for what it needs.

· New users can be added in minutes.

Conclusion

We believe in the future all software and computing generally will be provided under a hosted model. The difference is we provide this totally integrated legal practice management solution today.

Miser has been supporting LEAP clients on a hosted model for the past 18 months.

We ask you to measure our offering against your costs today. The justification will be there as it has been for our early adopters of this service. We are prepared to provide a cost summary against current methods.