International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), and InsideLegal, the insider’s guide to doing business in legal technology, today released the findings of the “2015 ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey” (survey). The survey, which is distributed to all ILTA member law firms, includes detailed technology budget data; updated information on firms’ purchasing influences and patterns; legal IT department trends and challenges; and expansive sections on specific legal technology purchases – both last year’s and those planned for the upcoming year. 2015 survey findings were presented to the vendors at the ILTA/InsideLegal’s Vendor Education Program at ILTA’s Annual Conference, ILTACON, taking place at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, August 30-September 3, 2015. A special session highlighting the findings for ILTA members will be held on Thursday at 1:30 in Roman Ballroom IV.
2015 ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey highlights include:
- 57% of all respondents spend 2-4% of total firm revenue on technology. Within this range, Medium Firms (50-199 attorneys) represent 49%, the largest percentage.
- 77% of survey respondents spend less than $17,000 on technology per attorney including 100% Small Firms (less than 50 attorneys). 86% of Large Firms (200+ attorneys) spend more than $17,000 per attorney.
- 2015 top 5 tech purchases: Laptops/notebooks (67%); desktop hardware (60%); network upgrades (51%); printers/MFDs (49%); antivirus/antispam software (40%).
- Microsoft Office add-ons (macros, templates, etc.) declined to 6% (from 12% in 2014); demand for Office upgrades stayed level at 18%.
- MS Office 365, introduced as a new category in 2015, was purchased by 13% of surveyed firms. 11% plan to purchase within the year.
- Firms utilizing big data tech prioritized business intelligence/analytics (34%); predictive coding (25%), pricing/managing legal spend (22%) and competitive intelligence/analysis (19%).
- 2015 top 5 legal/tech publications: ILTA White Papers (86%), Peer to Peer magazine (83%), Legaltech News (50%), Legal IT Today (21%) & ABA Journal (19%).
- Internet research, peer recommendations, and ILTA conferences are top 3 legal IT purchasing influences.
- 2015 ‘most exciting trend’ themes include cloud computing, mobility, security, virtualization, AI & analytics.
- 72% of all survey respondents outsource website design/services followed by printer repair/maintenance (49%) and spam/virus filtering (40%).
- Most firm BYOD policies cover smartphones (71%) and tablets (59%), only 28% cover laptops. 28% indicated they don’t have a BYOD policy.
- 60% of survey respondents stated that less than 25% of firm software and service solutions would be cloud-based within the next 1-3 years.
- 92% of respondents said they use outside technology consultants (up 2% from 2014 and 11% from 2013).
- For first time in 8 years, email management was not named biggest challenge facing legal IT departments … replaced by security management.
- Security is a hot button issue in the 2015 survey. Security software/security assessments ranked 6th in ‘what firms purchased last year’ and 5th in ‘planned purchases for next year’.
The entire 2015 survey report can also be downloaded at www.InsideLegal.com. For questions and comments regarding the analysis and results, please contact Jobst Elster.