Transition to the Cloud growing at a tremendous rate
As a total Cloud fanatic, I’m amazed and energised at the transition that is currently happening in both the business and technical worlds.
The transition to the Cloud is growing at a tremendous rate and as the technology becomes more available, robust and affordable, the opportunities continue to grow. We all know that Cloud is a rebrand of hosting, which has been around for many years, however, the difference is that The Cloud has become more about business transformation than technology.
Recently, a traditionally very conservative Law society of Scotland has taken the lead by stimulating a very interesting discussion with a view to publishing their Cloud Services Procurement Guidelines for the Legal Profession in Scotland in anticipation of their forthcoming Law Society Cloud Event in Edinburgh on the 9th of November 2011.
To see all of this grow from the days I started writing games on the ZX81 and Sinclair Spectrum is fascinating.
Now, many years on, as a specialist in the legal field offering Cloud for Law firms and through products like LawCloud, we at the forefront of transforming the way that lawyers in the UK work, and LawWare Ltd is leading in the legal cloud.
Times have never been more challenging for law firms than today. With the recent introduction of Alternative Business Structures alongside legal aid reforms, increasing paperwork for compliance, the need to be more efficient and competitive has never been more important.
Cloud computing presents the opportunity for small to medium sized firms to have best of breed software (traditionally reserved for the bigger firms) delivered directly to their doorstep at a low fixed monthly cost and with little or no capital expenditure. This very premise is creating vast modernisation and cultural changes in what was a profession grown out of very traditional roots.
Out of the box, The Cloud offers lawyers a new way of working that have never been so easy to reach before, including…
- Flexible working [from anywhere – office, home, court, holiday even]
- Peace of mind (All data is managed, backed up, no need to maintain a big expensive server)
- Cost savings (monthly subscriptions on a utility type basis)
- Simplified technology (Latest Management software, always kept updated by the Cloud provider, easily scalable)
Microsoft is leading the way with their online services with Office 365 and with new licensing models, Microsoft Office 2010, hosted emails and shared diaries should be an integral part of any serious Cloud system.
The Secret to Cloud Success is really still about relationships and knowing your Cloud provider. You are entrusting your crown jewels to a provider for the long term and you need to do your due diligence well. Nobody is perfect and whilst I am sure your experience will be a huge success, you should also plan your backup just in case things go wrong as they sometimes do. So, know where your data is and be sure you can get all of your data back when you need it and in a meaningful format.
Good luck with your journey to the Cloud. We are living in challenging yet incredible times.
As the infamous Benjamin Disraeli said “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.”…
Warren’s latest blog post has been featured in The Firm Magazine: “The Transition Position” and will appear in Totally Legal’s blog later this week.
About the author
Warren Wander is the founder and Managing Director of LawWare Ltd and more recently has become CEO of LawCloud Ltd. Warren has spent all his working life in the software development field and the last 15 years creating, developing & growing LawWare into one of Scotland’s most modern suppliers of Practice, Case & Risk management software. 
LawWare have established a strong reputation for an innovative and forward looking approach to the business of running a Law Firm and take the view that a ‘big picture’ approach toward all the staff within a firm is the surest route towards achieving both effective firm management and high level client care.
Although Warren lived in Scotland for the last 13 years, he is originally from Manchester, and graduated from Sheffield Hallam University with BSc (Hons) Computer Science in 1989.
You can find him at http://uk.linkedin.com/in/warrenwander
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