The Legal Cloud: More Freedom, More Security

Last month, whilst exhibiting at the British Legal Technology Forum 2015 we conducted a survey to discover current thinking around Cloud communications. We asked about the real barriers and challenges and whether the benefits were fully understood.

The findings reinforced what our clients have already communicated, that security and ethics continue to represent the largest concerns and barriers to adoption. However, despite these reservations, a majority of 71.43% believe the Cloud would be an excellent place for their business systems with 57.14% confident that the Cloud is ready to handle their communications infrastructure.

So if lawyers have confidence that Cloud can benefit their organisation, surely it is just a matter of trust?

A matter of trust

With over 70% of participants feeling uncomfortable in allowing their business critical systems to be managed by a Cloud service provider and 50% unsure that SIP is a reliable technology they would trust in their business, this does seem the case.

Richard Betts, Britannic`s Legal Account Director who has specialised in the legal sector for over 10 years, believes that the benefits of migrating to the Cloud are there to be gained, however lawyers need to understand that, providing they choose the right provider for their organisation, risks will be mitigated.

"The cloud can enable firms to work more effectively, reducing costs and freeing time to spend focused on clients and your business. Keeping communications simple is crucial, especially when time is so precious and mergers and acquisitions can introduce new systems, technology and applications. The protection of the system is imperative to its success and of the utmost importance when delivering any Unified Communications Solution"

Interestingly only 40% of participants could confidently claim their communications networks were fully resilient, which shows that although there is apprehension towards the Cloud, due to security fears, there isn`t complete confidence in their current systems either.