Law Firms Generate Huge Business for IT Companies

Professions that revolve around providing services generally plan to increase their spend on Information Technology in the coming year, according to new research by CompTIA.

Among the industries included in the study are law firms who joined the burgeoning group of professional services sectors that have opted for a more direct management style of the IT in their businesses.

A New Mindset of Innovation

CompTIA's senior Vice President Tim Herbet interpreted the results of the study as indicating a shift in attitudes from "keeping the lights on" to a mindset of "innovation, integration and intelligence." The study is a compilation of results collected in September 2015 that reflects the response data of over 600 legal, accounting and marketing firms who use IT.

Priorities

The respondent data shows where professional service firms' priorities are placed. The top winners were:

• Reaching New Clients
• Managing Costs and Overhead
• Improving Staff Productivity
• Improving Operational Efficiency

Lawyers Are Difficult

The study rated the general satisfaction of different sectors in the technology that they typically use day-to-day. Between accountants, marketers and lawyers, lawyers came in dead last with regards to how satisfied they were with the technology they used. Only 69 percent of lawyers were happy with their tech, while almost four out of five accounting firms were happy with the technology they currently had.

Tough Sell

But it could be the case that lawyers are the type that need to be unhappy about something. Though lawyers clocked in as having the lowest satisfaction rate in the professional services group, they were still the least inclined to boost IT spending within that group -- though it was higher over the years. While a quarter of marketing firms said they would increase IT spend in over the next year, only about 18 percent of law firms said that they would increase their IT spend over the next 12 months.

Or it could be that lawyer IT options out there really are terrible. But this isn't to say that lawyers aren't making changes in how they run their practices -- they're just a particularly choosy bunch.

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