Cloudy Forecast in the Am Law Tech Survey 2010

With consumer-centric devices making lawyers more tech friendly, but IT operating budgets mostly flat: Is the glass half-full or half-empty?

We confess: Interpreting the results of this year's survey of law firm technology departments -- our fifteenth -- was a somewhat maddening task. On one hand, it was easy to take a glass-half-full view of the results: Capital budgets are ticking back up, not quite to predownturn levels, but more than half of responding firms reported increases over last year. Collaborative technologies like videoconferencing are booming. And the lawyers themselves, spurred on by all the innovative, largely consumer-centric devices hitting the market (think iPhones and Droids), have finally become the tech-friendly users that chief information officers have long been waiting for.

But then the glass-half-empty side kicks in. IT operating budgets haven't quite seen the recovery that capital spending has: Sixty-two percent of responding firms report that outlays are flat, or even down, from 2009. In survey comments and follow-up interviews, technology chiefs reported that pressure to control costs continues, with staffing and salaries in particular taking a hit. And even when the purse strings are loosened, it's largely for technologies like videoconferencing and Microsoft's SharePoint that cut costs elsewhere, like the travel budget, or boost the productivity of a shrunken workforce. (CIOs from 86 Am Law 200 firms participated in this year's survey.)

"It's no secret that the law firms have laid off a lot of people over the last two years, and the people left are often overwhelmed," says the CIO at an East Coast firm, who asked not to be identified. "So if you can go into a budget meeting and say, 'Here's a project that will save operating expenses' -- which can't be spread out over three to five years like capital costs -- and help people do their work, that's a project you're going to get through."

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Source: law.com
By: Alan Cohen