Post by Jared Correia. Jared is the law practice management advisor with the Massachusetts Law Officer Management Assistance Program, providing free and confidential law practice management consulting to Massachusetts attorneys.  True to certain veiled promises, he makes his thoughts on law practice management available generally online, most notably through the LOMAP Blog and his Twitter account.

As a law practice advisor for Massachusetts’ Law Office Management Assistance Program, I am afforded a ringside seat for the viewing of trends in the legal field, through, what has become, my informal, detached study of modern lawyers’ habits.  One of the trends that I have noticed, over the time that I have spent in my current capacity, is that most of the attorneys with whom I consult are desirous of finding appropriate new technologies, that can: (1) unlock previously undiscovered efficiencies within their practice; and, (2) save them money. Given these qualifying motivations, it is, perhaps, unsurprising that many of the attorneys with whom I meet are ready, and most willing, to begin to incorporate SaaS solutions into their practices, to the extent that they have not already done so.

SaaS systems essentially (and, I won’t belabor this point, because if you’re a regular reader of LawRD’s “Your Law Firm in Progress” blog, you likely already know what SaaS systems are, and what they do) move the traditional software program from residence on your computer/system to residence on the web, accessible through a secure portal by you (and invited collaborators), following a set of security checkdowns.  SaaS systems, especially SaaS systems with practice management features, like the LawRD: Reports on Demand program, answer for the above-referenced requirements respecting efficiency and cost.  Online practice management systems are, in my experience, more accessible, easier to learn, more intuitive to use and faster in operation than those systems that continue to reside on your own computer systems. Given that certain systems, like LawRD’s, offer practice management components, for the better leveraging of client matter and contact management and for time and billing (among a number of useful features), the efficiency upgrade will be obvious in terms of adding a practice management system where, perhaps, none existed before; and, generally, the ease of use/intuitiveness, and speed additional to such programs, means that you’ll be working faster, and more efficiently, not harder.  Of course, one of the obvious reasons for the speed advance achieved with the use of SaaS systems is the fact that such programs are removed from your own computer system, and are not competing directly for space, memory and processing speed with the other applications that you have already downloaded to your machine; this also means that you’ve got fewer costs related to desktop/system support moving forward, and that the remainder of your traditional software systems will work faster, as well (competition having been removed), making you more efficient, saving you more money.  The cost savings of a move to SaaS are also inherent in the pricing models of most of these systems versus the pricing models of traditional software programs.  Generally, with traditional software systems, you’re paying a significant initial rate, plus for program updates, usually each year. With an SaaS system, you’re paying a fairly reasonable monthly rate (rather than a significant up-front cost), with updates taking place automatically, and behind the scenes, and without additional charge. The cost savings can become large-scale, depending upon the SaaS system you select, and depending upon the size (in terms of accessing employees) and needs of your firm; and, the additional efficiencies achieved through the immediate application of important updates and upgrades, without your spending any time to apply same, can also become significant.

If you want to learn more about SaaS, check out the “The Use of SaaS in the Legal Field” episode of my podcast.  With respect to the vetting of SaaS providers, and some of the security questions related to the utilization, by lawyers, of SaaS systems, look over my blog post respecting a North Carolina Bar Association proposed ethics opinion that attempts to provide some clarification in that space.  And, of course, you should continue to follow LawRD’s “Your Law Firm in Progress” blog, for product-related updates, and information relative to SaaS.

When deciding on the purchase of SaaS products in the legal space, you might consider LawRD’s flagship “Reports on Demand” program; you should also consider, as well, (LawRD parent company) muchBeta’s other useful SaaS product offerings: Teepin and Yoomit.

LawRD is a SaaS - software as a service - application, thus delivered over the Internet. Therefore, LawRD’s users data is stored on Web servers.

It is only natural for issues and doubts on data security to arise.

Before getting to the point, here is some food for thought: it is almost certain that you already bought something or did some sort of banking transaction on the Internet. Most definitely, you use e-mail.

The commom denominator to these 3 situations: with no exceptions, they all use Web servers.

With LawRD, we have implemented industry’s best practices in order to offering the safest data protection possible. Such procedures are:

• Data storing on Amazon servers via Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon web servers have physical security that equals the one found in military facilities. For instance, every access, be it physical or electronic, to data centres by Amazon employees is registered and audited regularly. AWS service security was good enough for NASDAQ to lodged store it’s Market Replay service.
  Adding to this, operational security is ensured by LawRD’s development team and suported by implementing firewalls and permanently updating the operating systems that support the Web application stored on Amazon servers.

• Safe communication between users’ browsers and the application servers. From the very first access to the site, communication is protected by HTTPS protocol through a 256 bits SSL digital certificate.
  
  HTTPS and the digital certificate assure that both communication between browsers and servers is encrypted (safe from prying eyes), but also garantees that users are actually accessing LawRD’s website and not an illegal surrogate.
  
  For a more in depth  reading on LawRD’s security, please go to
  https://www.lawrd.com/html/files/en/security.pdf

• Pledge of confidentiality: for us at LawRD confidentiality is a pledge described in our Privacy Policy document: https://www.lawrd.com/html/files/en/privacy.pdf. The #5 of that document states: 5 - muchBeta will not make any of the collected information available to anyone. We will never sell, rent, exchange or share your personal information with any third-parties (…)
  Another important issue: Although muchBeta owns the code, databases, and all rights to the LAWRD application, you retain all rights to your data.

Aware that data security is vital to all web application users, we ground ourselves to the best safety practices available and keep updated using state of the art technology.

An issue of security: where is my data lodged? Answer: at Amazon´s servers!

The data of our users is lodged on the servers of Amazon via Amazon Web Services (AWS). This way, LawRD provides its users the same level of security as the one given by that famous e-commerce web site.

Jeff Barr, Web Services Evangelist at Amazon, wrote this about LawRD on AWS blog:

After paying a very modest per-user monthly fee of 14 Euros per month, users can track the facts (what, when, where, and how) for each case, client, and employee. Timesheets, contact lists, invoices, and reports are all readily available. All data is encrypted and of course there’s no local software to install.

If you want to know more about data lodging on Amazon, please read the PDF on Security Policy, below:

https://www.lawrd.com/html/files/en/security.pdf