Saturday, May 5, 2007

This is my first blog in my life

I have been working as an IT specialist for 13 year+ in a legal firm. I can really witness the growth of IT in the legal industry. It has changed the old practice of the lawyers. All the while, the legal practitioners are very conservative but they have adapted the IT trends. Besides, IT has successfully advanced the legal industry. The large legal firms invest substantially in the development /employment of IT to promote their businesses and make them more competitive by providing on-line services to their clients such as extranets and e-billing. Take my firm as an example, throughout the years the IT staff have been expanded greatly over last decade regardless of the economic downturns from late 90's to early millennium. I am part of the team of 20 which are supporting around 600 people in six different locations.

Burstiner (2006, p.57) reports that the big US legal firms are spending more to upgrade their technology and expand their staff and, in general the technology capital expenses increased 3.5% over last year but the operating expenses declined 2.6%. It indicates that the technology can increase the firmwide efficiencies. Wireless access and data storage are the main areas being invested. I believe IT has also moved other industries and businesses.

Reference

Burstiner, M 2006, ’Making It Better’, AMLAW Tech, pp.55-59

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