Extract from Doug Austin’s article “Law Firms May Be Facing an eDiscovery and Tech Personnel Crisis”
If the Barbra Streisand song lyric “people who need people…are the luckiest people…in the world” is true, then personnel managers at law firms must be very lucky indeed. I’m sure they don’t feel that lucky, given the current eDiscovery and tech personnel crisis that many of them are beginning to face.
Two articles from Legaltech® News illustrate the current personnel challenge. Frank Ready’s article (Law Firms’ Tech Dilemma: Too Many Users and Not Enough IT Professionals) discusses the 2021 LTN Law Firm Tech Survey conducted over the summer where 31 firms were asked which areas of IT have been adversely affected by budget cuts. While the majority of respondents (about 59%) pointed to new projects that had been cancelled or diminished in scope, “staff salaries” (about 41%) and “staffing levels” (about 38%) were the next runners up.
In addition, 58% of respondents said they outsourced tech support in some fashion.
