Peer to Peer Magazine

39 WWW.ILTANET.ORG Infrastructure and Computing: This area encompasses requirements identification, selection, design, testing, implementation, management, maintenance and expert support of the desktop environment, networks and storage, access control, and overall hardware and soware infrastructure leveraged by the firm's lawyers and administrative team. Also included are practices related to data center management, IT backup and recovery, and overall systems monitoring. As cloud adoption drives the evolution of today's operations practices, the legal market will reduce internal reliance on and investment in traditional infrastructure practices. That migration work could occur over the next three to seven years with a continuing internal focus on high-level system engineering and systems integration practices being owned within the IT function. Vendor management practices are quickly evolving as importance grows. Client Support: Client support includes the IT help desk, desktop support and user technology training. The past decade of outsourcing help desk, desktop support and client support has yielded mixed results. Some firms have outsourced everything, some use outsourcers only for aer-hours support and others use third-party providers for weekday support. One newer trend is for some members of the outsourced team to physically resident on a client's site as a hybrid outsourcing model, though the financial commitment makes this option less aractive. Training practices are evolving. Technology training is most oen owned by IT, but some firms share responsibilities between IT and human resources. Most firms do not provide 2 3 Base IT operations practices vary by law firm, but every law firm IT function should include a focus on applications, infrastructure and computing, client support, technology risk management, IT business management, IT project/program management, and other elective administrative areas. What does each practice cover, and how is the changing legal landscape affecting their focus? Applications: The applications area includes IT practices that span requirements identification, selection, design, testing, implementation, management, maintenance and expert support of the soware applications leveraged by the firm's lawyers, administrative team and oen clients. This can also include application packaging and development and database management. The adoption of cloud-based and SaaS soware applications and the flexibility they provide will continue to reduce desktop and packaging practice requirements. Cloud-based applications will cause the desktop environment to become less customized, which will reduce the focus on some applications testing and packaging practices. Based on this sea change, applications practices are morphing to include a strong focus on vendor management practices. Understanding applications and the analysis of requirements will continue to be strategic practice sets for law firm IT functions. In addition, a subset of the firm's soware applications and associated responsibilities normally found in the applications and program/ project management areas may now exist within knowledge management in firms that have a separate knowledge management function. 1 The Changing Landscape of IT Operations Practices FEATURES DAN SAFRAN As President and CEO of LegalShift, Dan Safran is responsible for helping to lead the change in how law departments and law firms work together. He has spent over 30 years advising corporations and law firms on strategic growth, the application of business best practices and leading the drive to achieve operational excellence. Dan's role at LegalShift is that of a market collaboration visionary and cheerleader. He tries to live the ideals of innovation, collaboration and celebration, albeit with a little bit of humor! Contact him at dsafran@ legalshift.com. The legal market will reduce internal reliance on and investment in traditional infrastructure practices. Developing and maintaining a high-performance information technology function within a law firm is a bit like the game whack-a-mole: Just when you think you have hammered a component of your operations into place, another area pops up demanding your attention. The path to achieving operations excellence is not for the faint of heart.

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