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A recent phenomenon that has grabbed the attention of all associated with the legal sector is that law firms are increasingly using the Internet as a means of gaining access to numerous law firm applications. However, before you jump on to the bandwagon, it is necessary that you examine the advantages and disadvantages of using this particular technology. Law firms are taking to the Internet based model in order to get rid of the travails of keeping data backup and issues of server maintenance at the time of expanding their reliance on IT systems.
There are of course some law firms, which would prefer to tread the familiar path of opting for offline legal software. They are sceptical about whether the security of the data would be maintained online, as there are doubts over third party intrusion.
In order to understand how a web based software works, it is necessary to determine the extent to which it is different from the conventional models of software deployment. Web-based software is also referred to as SAAS or Software as a Service by some law firms and as a browser software by others. However, there is some confusion over the extent to which these newly developed Internet based models differ from the prevailing ones.
The difference is quite apparent. When it comes to the conventional ready-to-use legal software packages, these are usually installed on a server. Subsequently it is installed on each of the machines at the law firm. The server is located in the office of the law firm and thus can be accessed by solicitors by using their respective personal computers. The software can be bought directly and then an annual support fee needs to be paid for the customer support services and subsequent upgrades. An application upgrade would lead to a software upgrade as well and these would obviously increase the IT support costs thus affecting overall productivity.
Legal software programs that make use of the SaaS model imply that the data is centrally stored and then subsequently monitored by the IT staff for checking upgrades, maintaining backups, regular maintenance, installations and modifications. This process ensures that data security is much more than what would have been otherwise. This also means that you no longer have to purchase expensive hardware.
When it comes to disaster recovery, the issue holds much relevance for every industry. It is highly important when it comes to the legal sector as well. Web-based software is quite effective in this regard. Every bit of relevant client data is stored on the server side. This ensures business continuity even in the face of a major disaster. In addition to this, web-based applications do not occupy any disk space and therefore there is no chance of your system crashing down in case heavy software is loaded. This automatically increases the dependence of the users on the software. Web based applications mean that they have to be tested in a single environment and thus there is no need for them to be distributed and checked. They are mostly checked on data centres.
Thus, when one weighs the benefits of offline legal software against that of an online one, the scales automatically tilt towards the latter.
