When Will Norton began to roll out his purely cloud-based signature and closing platform SimplyAgree in 2016 and 2017 to prospective Am Law 100 law firm clients, he thought he time traveled to the early 2000s.

During meetings, Norton said he discovered a “decent amount” of firms “couldn’t use a cloud-based tool, which was a little surprising for me. … I assumed most firms embraced the cloud.” He added that the on-premises software preference was spurred by Big Law’s financial institution clients that hadn’t changed their earlier stance on the cloud.