We have all read about the West Coast Main Line, the Millennium Bridge, the Ministry of Defence’s Bowman radios – high-profile, costly project disasters. Do law firms’ IT projects ever go that badly wrong?

The numbers are smaller, the public interest is less, but yes, there are disasters. Take the practice management system that is still not formally accepted three years after going live – for the very good reason that it does not yet produce balance sheets that balance.