The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), and InsideLegal just released the findings of the 6th annual ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey (Survey). The 2011 Survey, focused on feedback from ILTA member law firms with 50 or more attorneys, covers detailed legal technology budget questions; updated information on firms’ social media preferences; an in-depth analysis of cloud computing; and sections on technology outsourcing and IT challenges.
Survey findings and analysis are being presented as part of InsideLegal’s vendor education program in conjunction with ILTA’s Annual Conference, taking place at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, August 21-25.
The 33 question web-based survey was distributed to approximately 684 law firms, ranging from 50 to 3,000 attorneys, and yielded 118 unique firm responses. 84% of all participating firms came from the U.S., with the remaining 16% originating from Canada, the UK, Australia, and Brazil. 85% of all survey respondents are IT Directors or C-Level executives, and 86% have direct purchasing or purchasing committee responsibility.
2011 Survey highlights include:
- Overall firm technology spending, as a percentage of firm revenue and based on per attorney spend, is still down from pre-2009 economic downturn figures.
- 57% of all responding firms spend between 2-4% of total firm revenue on technology.
- 46% of survey participants indicated spending $8K-$17K per attorney on technology purchases, the same response rate as in 2010.
- While budget slashing has been curtailed, keeping budgets balanced has taken priority with 35% indicating their budgets remained the same.
- The top five technology implementations within the last 12 months included desktop hardware; laptops/notebooks; network/server upgrades; storage area networks and virtualization.
- While ILTA’s Peer to Peer Magazine and ILTA whitepapers remain ‘favorite’ reads, 5 of the top 10 favorite publications mentioned by respondents are non-legal, general technology publications.
- Of the 52% who indicated using Twitter, many of them (27%) have an account but don’t actively use it.
- 44% of this year’s respondents reported they use outside technology consultants to aid in making purchasing decisions.
- Internet research was cited as the 2nd most popular influence in terms of aiding IT purchasing decisions (next to peer recommendations).
- 33% indicated they are implementing a cloud strategy, up from 17% in 2010 and 9% in 2009.
- 55% of surveyed firms provide IT support for employees that purchase and use their personal tablet devices.
RESOURCES:
Download the complete 16 page survey findings & analysis
Download the official press release
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