View from the Year 2020
72 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer
A Lofty F by Scott Bravi
or quite a while in the early part of this century, there were a good number of my peers who felt that we’d reached a point in IT operations where technology “changes” comprised refreshing computer hardware and adding an application
here or a version upgrade there. But then three factors converged to bring about very significant changes in IT operations for laws firms: the end of the PC era, a downturn in the global economy and changes in the legal business model that have led to an extreme emphasis on all categories of expenditures and the economies of scale provided by cloud service providers. Where are we now in the year 2020? According to my last
count, more than 75 percent of the globe’s 100 largest law firms have most of their infrastructure in some kind of secure cloud environment. These firms have moved almost exclusively to what you would have referred to 10 years ago as a thin- client model. Tablet computer hardware is the predominant platform because of its ease of use and portability. Reasonably priced high-speed access via secure wireless IPv6 connections is available just about everywhere. Interestingly enough,
