How to migrate a law firm to the cloud?

Over the last 10+ years, the number of law firms who are successfully using cloud services has gone from the very few taking their first steps, to a reported 74% of law firms currently storing client data in the cloud.

Only a few years back, the sentiment was that law firms have been slow to adopt cloud services but with the rise of Microsoft 365 services, new SaaS legal applications, and the rise in remote working, it’s safe to say the legal industry as we know it would not serve its clients in the same way without cloud services.

However, there are still plenty of firms who have either not yet migrated their on-premises servers to the cloud or have had problems when attempting to. In this article, we are going to flag the key considerations law firms should make when migrating to the cloud.

Legal Sector Cloud Migration Data Migration Access Managed Services

Posted 10/08/2023

Maturing at your own pace

You can read reports and statistics, or speak with your peers as to what they’re up to but ultimately each firm is unique and should ‘run their own race’ when it comes to cloud migrations.

For some, it will make sense to take a phased approach, starting with leveraging Microsoft's extensive cloud capabilities within Microsoft 365. Traditionally, a popular place to start was by migrating emails to the cloud and then progressively experimenting with cloud-based applications.

For others, shifting the entire estate of back-end IT servers to a cloud environment might be the right option. Although historically this option may have been cost prohibitive depending on the size of the organisation, over the past 3-5 years, new creative solutions have been designed to cater to every shape and size of the law firm.

Making the right decision

After weighing up the pros and cons, and thoroughly researching the market, it’s time to talk directly to the experts. You won’t find it difficult to find a cloud provider and no doubt you’ll quickly get a feel if that provider would be a good fit for you.

But, don’t rush into any decisions, a project like this is critical to the operations of your practice. Finding a new provider should be seen as more like finding a new partner. Someone who understands your industry cares about your unique circumstances and can prove their expertise.

A successful go-live

Once a partner has been selected, and the contracts signed, a thorough onboarding process will begin, pulling in resources and expertise from different areas, whereby technical discoveries are undertaken, and careful consideration will go into the planning and building of the solution before it enters ‘user acceptance testing'.

Once this acceptance testing has been completed and you’re happy with the results, most law firms opt for a weekend go-live, to minimise disruption for the business.

If all of the above is carried out meticulously, come Monday morning, the firm's employees should be signing into their new cloud solution as if nothing has happened. Or at least, nothing drastic. Oftentimes the initial look and feel will be similar, but the speed, uptime, and overall performance of the solution should be outstanding.

Conclusion

Finding the right IT partner for a law firm can be a challenge, and the project can be a big one to take on. But when you break it down, do your research and talk to the right people. It’s not as scary a project as you might think.

If you’ve got any questions on the above, or would like to discuss migrating to the cloud then you can book a time with one of our legal cloud experts here.