Big Law Firms Spending More on Technology, Experts Say

About half of the 281 law firms that participated in a 2014 survey by International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) and InsideLegal said they had increased their technology spending budgets that year, six percent more than the year before.

More recently, legal software companies have reported an increase in business from big law firms. Software provider Aderant, for instance, reported adding Holland & Knight, Maynard Cooper & Gale PC and Miller Thomson LLP as clients in recent days.

Peter Zeughauser, a legal consultant with the Zeughauser Group, said that he “can’t think of any major firms that aren’t spending materially more on technology than they did five years ago.”

The uptick should be put into context, however: The ILTA survey showed that the majority of the 281 law firms — described as firms with either less or more than 50 attorneys — spent between two and four percent of the firm’s total revenue on technology. Sixty two percent of them spent more than $8,000 on technology per attorney.

Chris Cartrett, Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Aderant, said the market for legal technology tools is seeing growing interest from law firms, but many are “in the evaluation stages.”

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