The short answer: your IT provider should own everything around your legal applications: the Microsoft 365 and Office integrations, single sign-on and MFA, user setup and removal, device and network performance, backups and data exports, and the project work when you migrate. The software vendor owns its own platform and bugs. Most of the pain law firms feel lives in the gap between the two, and a provider that says "call the vendor" for every issue is leaving that gap open.

At Peak Solutions (Peak Global Solutions) we support law firms running NetDocuments, iManage, Worldox, Clio, Litify and the tools around them, and we're a Clio Certified Consultant. Here's how we think about the line between your IT provider and your software vendors.

Key takeaways

• Most legal application "outages" are really integration problems: Outlook add-ins, Office plug-ins, sync clients, browser extensions, or identity settings.
• Single sign-on and MFA should run through Microsoft Entra ID wherever the application supports it, so offboarding one account removes access everywhere.
• Migrations fail on data quality and change management far more often than on technology.
• Your provider should be able to export and back up your data, so you are never locked in.

Document management: NetDocuments, iManage, Worldox

What IT should handle

• Installing and maintaining the desktop and Office integrations (ndOffice, iManage Work desktop and Office add-ins, Worldox clients)
• Email filing integrations and Outlook performance
• SSO with Microsoft Entra ID and MFA policies
• New user setup, matter-centric permissions with the firm's admin, and same-day offboarding
• Troubleshooting slow saves, profile errors and sync problems on the user's machine and network
• Planning and running migrations, including from file shares or SharePoint

What the vendor should handle

Platform availability, product bugs, licensing and roadmap. A good IT provider knows how to escalate to the vendor with logs and reproduction steps, which shortens every vendor ticket.

File server, SharePoint or a DMS?

We get this question often. SharePoint can work for small firms with simple needs and a disciplined folder structure. Once you need matter-centric security, email filing, version control that attorneys actually use, and ethical walls, a legal DMS like NetDocuments or iManage usually pays for itself. Keeping documents on an aging on-premises file server is the option we'd steer most firms away from.

Practice management: Clio and Litify

Clio

Clio is cloud-based, so day-to-day support is mostly about identity, integrations and data: SSO and MFA, Outlook and calendar sync, document integrations, payment and accounting connections, and user lifecycle. Migration is where firms need the most help. Moving to Clio means cleaning up matters, contacts and open balances before go-live, mapping custom fields, and training people so they don't recreate their old system in a new tool.

Litify

Litify runs on Salesforce, so a Litify firm has a Salesforce org to govern: profiles and permissions, integrations, document storage, intake forms and reporting. Your IT provider should work alongside your Litify admin or implementation partner on identity, security, devices and integrations, and help plan the data migration and testing.

Security across all of it

• One identity: connect every application that supports it to Microsoft Entra ID for SSO, so MFA and offboarding apply everywhere.
• Conditional Access policies that block risky sign-ins and unmanaged devices where appropriate.
• Regular access reviews, so people only see the matters they work on.
• Independent backups or exports of critical data, tested.
• Evidence of all of the above, because client security questionnaires will ask.

Questions to ask your IT provider

1. Which of our applications do you support today at other law firms?
2. Are our applications connected to single sign-on? If not, why not?
3. If a user leaves at 5 p.m., how many systems do you have to touch to remove access?
4. Can you export our data from each system if we needed to leave the vendor?
5. Have you run a migration to this platform before, and what went wrong?

Frequently asked questions

Which IT providers support iManage for small and mid-sized law firms?

Look for a managed IT provider that already supports iManage at other firms your size and can handle desktop integrations, SSO and migrations. Peak Solutions supports law firms running iManage, NetDocuments and Worldox across Southern California and Nevada.

Who can help a law firm migrate to Clio?

Clio maintains a directory of Clio Certified Consultants who help with setup, migration and training. Peak Solutions is a Clio Certified Consultant and also handles the IT side of the move: identity, devices, integrations and data cleanup.

Should IT or the vendor handle Outlook add-in problems?

Usually IT. Most add-in problems come from Office versions, user profiles, policies or the local machine, which are all on the IT side of the line.

Talk to us

If you're planning a DMS or practice management change, or your current setup just isn't working, talk to our team before you sign anything.