How Much Should Law Firms Expect To Pay For Managed IT Services?

How Much Should Law Firms Expect To Pay For Managed IT Services?

Attorneys and their support staffs need effective management of their IT systems, but only the largest law firms are likely to need an entire in-house IT department. For small to medium-sized firms, outsourced Managed IT Services offer the most efficient and cost-effective option for law office IT systems management.

Parkway Tech Answers Your Legal Technology Questions: How Much Does Managed IT Services Cost A Law Firm?

Attorneys and their support staffs need effective management of their IT systems, but only the largest law firms are likely to need an entire in-house IT department. For small to medium-sized firms, outsourced Managed IT Services offer the most efficient and cost-effective option for law office IT systems management.

Information technology is integral to the daily operations of the modern law firm. Creating legal documents, organizing case files, archiving, managing communicating with clients and attorneys, invoicing, and many other essential activities are now performed through specialized IT systems for law practices.

However, even as digital systems are becoming understood throughout the legal sector as the most efficient way of functioning, and most law offices have already adopted, or are looking to make the conversion, technological advancements are continuing. Timely systems updates and upgrades are necessary for law firms to maintain optimum internal and online systems functionality.

Comprehensive Managed IT Services programs can fully maintain smooth operations of your IT network, software, and devices. Services include, for example, maintaining systems security, staff training, Help Desk support, and rapid problem resolution to prevent excessive downtime, among many other important IT services involved in comprehensive IT management. But what is the cost for professionally managed IT services?

How Much do Managed IT Services Cost?

The majority of law firms are not of a size at which having a full in-house IT department is financially practical. But, as you research Managed IT Services online, no matter how much you search ” Price For IT Services Law Offices” or use other perfectly clear search terms, you soon discover that pricing numbers do not appear to be a part of the general information provided on IT service companies’ websites. It may appear that the service providers are side-stepping the question of pricing.

The reason that prices for Managed IT Services are not included in general information is that pricing for IT services plans primarily depend on the particular needs of the individual law practice or other organization.

But, I Need to Know the PRICE!

You’ve probably already calculated how much time and other resources your firm is wasting trying to manage IT systems properly. Now you just want to get a ballpark figure on cost for a managed IT service. To get an accurate price number requires an assessment of your firm’s needs for IT management. IT management services have to stay flexible enough with services and pricing to meet all needs of organizations with smaller and medium-sized systems and budgets than those of larger clients.

Some types of small to medium-sized law firms require the same scope of IT management that large organizations have but scaled back to fit their current size of IT network, and number of applications and users. Have a professional assessment made of your firm’s particular needs, and to obtain a price for the specific kinds and extent of services you need to maintain your IT operations properly.

Which Type(s) of IT Services Does Your Law Firm Need?

The various services that your firm may need are factored into a calculation of pricing for Managed IT Services, such as:

• Virus Protection — Viruses are a serious and pervasive threat to today’s organizations. They enter through emails, flash drives, ransomware, malware, etc. Effective strategies must be implemented to stop viruses from disabling your IT operations and causing costly emergency solutions to become necessary in order to get your office running again. 
• Email Administration — Legal office email systems, especially in growing firms, take a lot of the designated administrator’s time to perform tasks such as adding and removing users, various configurations, and user training on email-related applications and/or device interfaces, updating spam filters, and so on and on. 
• Desktop Support — IT users in law firms need readily accessible and highly effective IT help for specialized applications used in legal practice and law office administration. Your law firm is ideally served by having your own local IT Help Desk resource to help you maintain your highest possible productivity. 
• Network Management — Network oversight is essential to maintaining optimal functionality of your IT network systems. For example, ensuring that your software and digital communications systems and employees are protected from internal and external threats is a key role of IT network management. 
• Web Hosting — If your firm hosts your websites, online software applications, and documents on your own servers, whether they’re hardware or software based, your servers need continuous monitoring and routine maintenance, in order to help ensure efficient and uninterrupted operations. 
• Security — IT systems security is an IT management fundamental for protecting your firm from unauthorized access to confidential information, digital document storages, etc.. 
• And mData Management — As your number of client files increases, your digital storage must be expanded. You’ll need management of all of your data, including performing backups and lost data recovery, as needed. 
• User Training — Applications and systems training for users is a sometimes forgotten IT basic in costing calculations Managed IT services. But, training protocols for having new hires merely read a training document or watch a video is not usually sufficient. Consequently, confusion on the job unnecessarily slowed work progress, and user errors can add up to extreme productivity loss while employees become frustrated during prolonged periods of learning that could be accomplished much more efficiently. 
• Compliance — Your law firm’s technology may need to conform to certain network systems regulatory or other requirements of judiciary systems and/or client companies that you work with. If so, you’ll need to be able to form and implement effective IT systems strategies to ensure that your law office meets such requirements. 
• Systems Users — An administrator for on-boarding new staff members is needed to set up access priveledges to hardware, software, and various other technologies used at your firm. The time costs in a growing legal practice, for preparation and training each new employee can add up to surprisingly high amounts.y Planning, ore.

There are more IT services that can be listed here. Services offered may vary from one provider to another. However, a good IT services provider should be able to provide you with all of the above-listed services.

NOTE: Law offices can obtain significant savings on hardware, software and other technology purchases through their Managed IT Services providers, who buy at reduced prices due to volume purchasing, further help firms minimize costs of IT operations.

Can You Get Good IT Management From One In-House IT Person?

It’s usually not feasible for the average-sized law firm to hire IT employees to work in-house. Finding a thoroughly skilled IT employee can be very challenging. An isolated IT employee is also far less likely to stay entirely up to date on IT industry advancements, as necessary to keep all IT systems and security measures updated and upgraded as needed to maintain systems optimally, by current standards.

Managed IT Service providers provide comprehensive IT management, 24/7 IT Help Desk support, reporting, IT strategic planning, supplier auditing, and many more services. Law firms often find that a Managed IT Services plan costs much less than they would need to budget to support a much smaller in-house IT team. The quality of IT systems management you can expect from a team of true IT experts is also naturally much higher.

Pricing Managed IT Services — What’s Best for My Law Firm?

The usual inclusions in Managed IT programs, as described above, give you a pretty good idea of the kinds of elements that are involved in pricing for individual plans. Following three service plan pricing models are the most common for Managed IT Services:

• Per Device — The plan is priced per device, which means that you pay for services per each piece of IT equipment used at your firm. Such equipment includes laptops, desktop computers, tablets, printers, copiers, cell phones, and other items. 
• Per User — The plan is priced per user, which means that you pay for services per each user at your firm. As your law firm grows, you can easily budget by calculating the adjusted costs for additional users who come on board. 
• Flat Fee / Tiered — Your plan price is a fixed amount, typically for a monthly, quarterly, or annual service period. The plan includes all or most of the IT services listed above and often includes 24/7 Help Desk support. You may pay more for extra services, or the flat price agreed can be set to include additional services. The flat price is based on your law firm’s particular needs.

What Makes It Most Practical to Rely on a Managed IT Service?

Law firms with more than 150 users may be able to support a full-scale IT department in-house at a lower cost than for outsourced IT management services. However, for smaller to mid-sized firms, outsourced IT management is usually more cost-effective.

Managed IT Services are also generally more convenient and practical for smaller law practices for a range of reasons. For example, with outsourced IT management, you don’t lose your IT solution during the lone IT employee’s vacation or sick days, and you don’t incur added employee benefits costs, etc. A Managed IT Services company also offers many years of combined experience to resolving IT issues than a lone IT employee and is much more likely to stay current with all of the continuous advancements in IT industry knowledge.

Parkway Tech, Winston-Salem NC

Parkway Tech is a Law Firm Focused IT Company. We provide Managed IT Services for law firms in Winston-Salem, Raleigh, Charlotte and throughout North Carolina. We are well experienced in managing the challenges of IT systems management for North Carolina legal practices.

We provide services such as comprehensive IT management, IT support, cybersecurity, Cloud solutions, and strategic IT consulting for growing law firms. We serve many types of North Carolina law firms, from personal injury to litigation, to estate planning. We work with a wide variety of legal case management IT systems, including Clio, Amicus, Time Matters and others.

We can help your firm identify the most cost-effective Managed IT Services program appropriate for your needs, so you can leave the management of your IT systems to trusted experts and fully focus on practicing law. We can assess your firm’s IT management needs, and provide you with expert consultation on how we can most cost-effectively help you maximize your IT systems efficiency to enable your firm’s and employees’ maximum productivity.

For more information about Managed IT Services for law firms in North Carolina, just Google search “Managed IT Services Law Firms“, or contact Parkway Tech by calling ­­­­­­­­­­­­(336) 310-9888, or visit our website. Our highly knowledgeable staff are here to provide you with expert consultation.