Software solutions: the commitment never ends

Your new systems are installed and all your people - including your partners - have been trained how to use them.

Surely it is time, you might be tempted to think, to relax and put technology on the back-burner for a couple of years while you concentrate on other projects?

It would be nice if this were the case, but unfortunately even once a system is up and running, the involvement of the firm's management does not end there.

From implementation onwards, it is essential to have someone with a senior position within the firm - someone with real 'clout' - with overall responsibility for technology to ensure that not only do the current systems continue to run smoothly but also to keep an eye on future trends and developments within the legal IT world generally.

Larger firms with extensive budgets have an advantage here because they can afford to employ highly qualified IT directors.

Unfortunately, in smaller firms, this need for an ongoing commitment towards IT is frequently overlooked, with some partnerships still taking the view that IT is something they 'do' every five or six years and then forget about until it once again becomes necessary to upgrade their accounts and word-processing systems.

But the fast-moving pace of technology means this is no longer an option.

For example, in the past five years e-mail and Web sites have shifted from being nice-to-have to must-have technologies; Microsoft Word has replaced WordPerfect as the dominant word-processing platform; there have been three major upgrades to the Windows operating system; firms of all shapes and sizes are now being required to provide clients with direct access, via extranet portals, to matter progress reports; and various initiatives by the Legal Services Commission and under the National Land Information Service scheme mean firms are having to contend with an e-commerce dimension even within such traditional areas of legal practice as legal aid and conveyancing.

The message for firms here has to be: you cannot simply buy a new system and then forget about it.

There must be an ongoing, high-level commitment within the partnership management both to the day-to-day running of existing systems and to the longer-term monitoring of developments in technology and strategic planning for future IT projects.

If nothing else, you have to keep your finger on the pulse otherwise you risk falling so far behind in the technology stakes that it will be difficult to catch up.

Charles Christian is an independent adviser to the Law Society's software solutions guide