Capabilities

After five years of steady sailing on technical infrastructure that fit my firm’s needs, leadership updated their business strategy to grow to twice their current size across two new regions. The firm’s days of knowing each other as if they all worked in the same room were numbered. We asked IVIONICS how quickly we could install new computers and they asked us, in a nice way, “is that all you think is involved?”

When firm management sees a hefty spend on technology, they expect to see improvements in their computing experience. How technology components integrate and rely on each other is much more nuanced and our previous spend was on keeping our server infrastructure current so we could then begin upgrading our desktop and applications. Firm leadership not only understood this, but they saw it as an opportunity to re-evaluate not only the applications used, but the processes that drive application use and the flow of data between applications. Like all law firms, recent data breaches and the General Data Protection Regulation have brought cybersecurity and data governance to the top of mind.

It was time to upgrade a considerable amount of the firm’s infrastructure and applications to stay current and secure. Front-page cyber security incidents involving law firms got leadership’s attention, as did the buzz around cloud computing. Leadership was astute enough to know that this was also their best opportunity to re-evaluate how they manage their business.

The tipping point when my law firm Managing Partner called me in the dead of night to talk about cyber security came on May 9th, 2016, when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released the Panama Papers to the public. The call did not come because our firm had any connection to since-defunct Mossack Fonseca, the firm from which leaked 11.5 million documents and was subsequently charged with money laundering. He called to be reminded of what we had agreed to put in place during the last budget season and find out what more could be done and how quickly.

“Information is the currency for the new knowledge economy and data governance is the law.” – Paul Sperry