ILTA 2019 Technology Survey: Change Is Afoot


Live From ILTACON: New Developments In Legal Technology

Every year, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) releases its handy and incredibly useful Technology Survey. This year, the full survey will be released in late October 2019, but if you’d like a sneak peak, the Executive Summary is currently available here.

This year’s Survey is based on the input of 537 firms and provides a wealth of interesting insight into the legal technology focus and spend of firms large and small. According to the Summary, 31 percent of responding firms were from firms with less than 50 attorneys, 37 percent were from firms with less than 150, 18 percent were from firms with less than 350, and 15 percent were from with more than 350.

At the very outset, it was clear that change was afoot. Jim McCue, the author of the Summary, commented on the notable trend of firms taking the long view and implementing change with a view toward the future: “(L)ooking forward, many firms are embracing technologies with less than immediate results and instead offer long term promise.”

In my experience, law firm leaders are often focused on short-term goals, whether financial, technology-related, or otherwise, so to learn that firms appear to be making technology decisions with the long game in mind is a promising development, to say the least.

One interesting, albeit not unexpected, finding was that mobile technologies have been most impactful for the firms surveyed. Specifically, the survey respondents were asked to share the single project completed in the past year that had the greatest impact, and the top result was “improving mobility and the security needs that come with mobility.”

Mobile technologies have been a driving force since the release of the iPhone in 2007, and have dramatically affected — and infiltrated — all aspects of our culture. Accordingly, it’s not surprising to learn that law firms have necessarily focused on adapting their technology infrastructure and procedures to incorporate the secure use of mobile tools by their employees.

Another notable trend is the increase in the use of cloud computing software by responding firms, with 72 percent of firms predicting that their use of cloud computing software would increase in the coming year. And, when respondents were asked to identify a technology that would “create significant change or be a major factor in the legal technology profession,” the top response was cloud computing, with 39 percent of respondents choosing it. As explained in the Survey, these findings comported with the four year trend of firms predicting an increase in the adoption of cloud-based tools.

Some of the top areas where firms reported that they were most likely to use cloud computing software were payroll, email (security, archiving, storage), document management systems (DMS),  and time and billing. 

Seventy percent of law firms reported that they had already migrated their payroll systems to the cloud, and 7 percent were planning to do so within the next year. Sixty-six percent already used email security cloud-based solutions and 10 percent planned to do so within a year.  Email archiving was already in the cloud for 46 percent of firms and 22 percent had plans to migrate it to the cloud within the year. Thirty-three percent already had email in the cloud and 39 percent expected to have it in the cloud over the next year. Twenty-five percent of firms reported that they’d moved their DMS to the cloud and 31% had plans to do so within a year. Finally, 14 percent of firms reported that their time and billing systems were cloud-based, and 17 percent planned to moved to a cloud solution by next year.

The Survey also addressed the cybersecurity measures taken by law firms. Specifically, survey respondents were asked the following question: “Besides encryption and traditional desktop security software, which of the following security measures does your firm use?”

The top responses included:

  • Removing desktop administrative rights (77 percent)
  • Adding multi-factor authentication to remote access/web services (77 percent)
  • Phish testing of users (68 percent)
  • Increase in intrusion prevention systems (63 percent)

And last, but not least, when respondents were asked to identify “the top three technology issues or annoyances within your firm,” change cropped up again, repeatedly.  In fact, it appeared in three of the top four responses. Thirty-seven percent cited “Change: users acceptance of change” as the top issue, followed by 28 percent citing “Change: keeping up with new versions of software,” and finally, Twenty-eight percent cited “Change: managing expectations (user and management).”

In other words, change is the name of the game when it comes to law firms and legal technology in 2019; it’s never easy, but it’s necessary. And, as the majority of respondents acknowledged, it’s all about the long game: embracing change leads to long term benefits — and what’s not to like about that?


Niki BlackNicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter @nikiblack and she can be reached at [email protected].




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