In today's fast-paced digital landscape, law firms must continually adapt and improve their technology to stay competitive. With the right practices in place, firms can reduce IT costs, enhance productivity, minimize potential problems, and deliver an exceptional end-user experience. Below we highlight six effective strategies that can help your firm achieve your IT goals.

A security operations center (SOC) is a team of IT security experts whose sole focus is to proactively monitor your firm’s security, detect and analyze threats, and respond and remediate when necessary. To be effective, the team of highly-qualified experts must work 24x7x365 so that they can rapidly respond to any emerging threat. For the vast majority of small and midsize firms, it simply does not make financial sense to build this function in-house, yet with cyberattacks increasing in sophistication and volume, it is far too risky to ignore the need for a SOC. Many small and midsize firms choose to partner with a third-party IT security provider that offers Security Operations Center as a Service (SOCaaS) to ensure constant, proactive protection against cybersecurity threats.

New York City is a highly competitive place to do business. In fact, a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked New York the most competitive city on the planet. To succeed here, your law firm can’t afford to have its IT system go down due to faulty equipment, and you certainly can’t accept the security risks and lost productivity that inefficient, insecure IT breeds. Your law firm needs to focus its time and energy on your core business to stay ahead of your competitors. Partnering with a New York City-based managed IT service provider (MSP) can help you with all these realities and more.

Law firms are attractive marks for cybercriminals, who have increasingly targeted the legal industry with phishing, ransomware, and other attacks. According to the 2022 ABA Cybersecurity Tech Report, 27% of law firms have experienced some form of a security breach. Security and data breaches can be very costly, with the average price tag rising to $4.35 million globally in 2022, according to IBM’s annual Cost of a Data Breach Report. The ethical and legal responsibility to protect clients’ private information creates added risk for law firms, which must take a multi-faceted approach to protect their IT systems and data. Here are five things every law firm needs to know about cybersecurity.

As many firms continue to embrace a hybrid work environment, others are still on the fence. While fully remote and always in-office both have their advantages, a hybrid work environment combines the best of both arrangements. As firms seek to compete for top talent, improve work-life balance, and enhance their productivity, the advantages of a hybrid work model are becoming increasingly clear. Here are a few unexpected benefits of a hybrid work environment.

For law firms, cybersecurity should always be at the forefront of your IT. Data breaches are costly to your operations, your reputation, and to your clients. One of the most important aspects of cybersecurity is a strong password and multi-factor authentication (MFA) policy. Here are some of the most effective practices for implementing a strong password and MFA policy for your firm.

Reliable, efficient, and secure technology is necessary for law firms to provide their clients with excellent service. But it is not necessary – or even advisable – for small and midsized law firms to manage their IT themselves. Unlike their larger counterparts, small and midsized law firms simply do not have the resources to properly build, optimize, support, and defend an enterprise-level IT system.

By partnering with a good managed IT service provider (MSP), you gain the expertise and capability of an entire in-house IT department, which frees your firm up to focus on what you do best: providing your clients with trusted legal counsel and representation.

Competition within the legal industry is fierce. Whether your goal is to attract new clients, retain talent, or improve efficiencies, law firms need every competitive advantage to thrive. Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a cloud-based solution that firms can utilize to transform their IT and become more secure, mobile, and free to focus on their clients.

The wide-scale destruction wreaked by Hurricane Ian is a stark reminder that firms need to be prepared for a natural disaster. If a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, blizzard, flood, fire, or gas explosion destroyed or rendered your offices inaccessible, does your firm have a plan in place to ensure recovery of your data and continuation of your operations?