Survey finds law firm tech spending on the rise

How much did your law firm invest in each attorney’s technology resources last year? If it’s less than $5,000, then your firm is spending less per attorney than 83% of other firms out there, according to a survey released last year by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA). On the other side of the spectrum, 14% of law firms were spending over $21,000 per attorney on technology resources, with 47% of firms spending between $8,000 and $21,000 per attorney. Those are just a few findings from the survey indicating the amount of spending by law firms on technology, which was up among firms in 2016.

What Resources are Firms Spending Money On?

The survey includes a long list of technological resources that firms had both spent money on and planned to spend money, highlighting the enormous impact that technology has had on the way that law firms conduct business and compete with one another. Of the over 65 different technological resources listed, the top 10 resources that firms spent money in the past year (as a factor of the percentage of firms devoting money on them) include:

• Desktop hardware, including PC’s (61%)
• Laptops/notebooks (59%)
• Network upgrades and servers (53%)
• Printers and multifunctional devices (44%)
• Antivirus/antispam/malware software (44%)
• Business continuity / disaster recovery software (41%)
• Security and security assessment software (40%)
• Smartphones (38%)
• Cloud storage (34%)
• Storage Area Networks (28%)

What Do Firms Plan to Spend Resources On?

Looking forward to what firms plan to spend money on in the coming year, the survey found the following four resources were surging in popularity:

• Email systems (24% – up from 6% in 2015)
• OS upgrades (32% – up from 16% in 2015)
• Cloud storage resources such as Dropbox (25% – up from 15% in 2015)
• Time entry software (18% – up from 7% in 2015)

Maximize Your IT Budget With TimeSolv

If there is one thing that can be taken from the ILTA survey, it is that there are many different types of technological resources that law firms need to consider in order stay competitive, from accounting systems to workflow management, and everything in between. With the amount of resources available, it is not hard to see how so many firms spend tens of thousands of dollars per attorney every year on tech.

But, with TimeSolv, firms of all sizes can gain access to multiple technological resources for as little as $8.96 per timekeeper per month. In addition to providing firms with comprehensive time entry services, including remote time entry, TimeSolv provides the following resources:

• Billing approval
• Expense tracking
• Reporting services
• Project management
• Document automation and management

Thus, law firms can make their IT budgets go further while improving productivity with TimeSolv’s low-cost suite of services.

Optimize Your Firm with TimeSolv

TimeSolv offers backend automated office solutions that brings big-firm innovation to all types of firms, no matter the size. We provide low-cost automated solutions to optimize your firm’s billing, collection, expense tracking, internal reporting, and project management efforts, and offer free training to ensure that you are maximizing all the features that TimeSolv has to offer. To start your free trial of TimeSolv today, click here.