Cost-cutting looks set to be the overriding theme once again for the IT departments of many US law firms in 2004. But as the US legal market crawls gingerly out of recession there are a few brave souls who are looking at longer-term IT strategies, and a few software vendors who are optimistically forecasting a moderate increase in spending. This was the word on the street at Legal Tech New York, the biggest legal technology bunfight on the face of the planet.
After an obvious year of attrition, with budgets frequently frozen, staff headcounts reduced and costly projects pulled, strategic thinking has not really moved on from where it was before the recession. Alan McLoughlin, chief technology officer at legal publisher Lexis-Nexis, struck a chord in his keynote address when he spoke of tarnished reputations among law firms chief information officers (CIOs) and declared that most have seen budget decreases. “We can no longer do anything just for the fun of it,” he said.
