How To Pick The Best Cloud For Your Law Firm
Choosing the right cloud service for your law firm is extremely important because you will be sharing confidential data with a third-party company and you must ensure that it can be trusted to provide you with quality security and confidentiality. Terms of Service (ToS) and Privacy Policies should be thoroughly examined to ensure that the cloud service can meet or exceed the minimum standards to satisfy your ethics requirements. Many law firms have already migrated to cloud computing and the number is rising at about 5% per year. Others are still wary and have not made the decision to move to the cloud just yet. But it doesn't matter if you're a full-fledged cloud user or just using it sparsely to determine if it's the right fit for you, you still need to have a complete understanding of cloud technology in order to get the most out of your cloud experience.
There are many small law firms that are not part of big business and for these firms, computer and network management can be a time-consuming, costly task. Cloud services offer workable solutions that cut costs and expedite law firm tasks by lawyers, co-workers, legal aides, receptionists and more.
There are many small law firms that are not part of big business and for these firms, computer and network management can be a time-consuming, costly task. Cloud services offer workable solutions that cut costs and expedite law firm tasks by lawyers, co-workers, legal aides, receptionists and more.
Cloud service plans and rates
Cloud services generally offer a pay-as-you-go rate with the option to pay in advance for longer terms if needed. This gives users the opportunity to cut costs as they will only pay for as much space or as many users as they need. If 100 GB is enough for you, you can buy that amount and pay a monthly rate. If you only want to pay for the exact amount that you use, you can pay that way, usually around $0.10 per GB. If you have to pay for additional users, you may want to pay for only as many users as you believe will need access to the cloud. If only 10 of your staff members need cloud access, you don't need to buy a plan allowing access for 100 users. Most cloud services are scalable as well, offering increases in services as needed.
Reasons lawyers use cloud services
There are a number of reasons that law firms use cloud services, especially for remote usage and management of documents. Some cloud services, such as Basecamp, are excellent for document management (or any project management) while others like Clio or Rocket Matter are specifically designed for legal practice.
What you need to determine about your cloud provider
There are many questions to be asked when choosing the correct cloud that will work for you. You need to determine the level of customer support the cloud service offers. You must determine the cloud provider's definition of performance and whether it meets the standards you set for the tasks you will be using the cloud service for. And of course you must determine how adequate the cloud provider's security is at protecting your client's confidential data. You should determine if the cloud provider uses encryption during both transfer and storage of files and documents and whether they offer additional security measures such as two-step authentication.
Data loss and backup solutions
One big security factor you must determine is what the policy is for data loss. Are you protected in case such an event occurs? How fast can you restore your files? Many lawyers choose to go with a cloud service that is specifically designed to provide secure backups of all files, the most favorable being cloudHQ.
The cloudHQ service provides an automatic, continuous backup of all files and documents to a separate cloud account. Since the replication is continuous, this means when you add new files or documents to the account, or when you revise existing documents, the changes are replicated immediately. There is no daily, weekly or monthly manual backups like other cloud services offer. And the process is automated, it runs in the background completely transparent to you so you can continue your work uninterrupted as it churns along, dutifully replicating all your changes and additions. If you accidentally delete a file, or if a hacker deletes your files, or if any other reason causes data loss, you can instantly switch to the backup account and restore within seconds. If your main cloud service goes down for maintenance or other reasons, you can just switch to the backup account and continue your work uninterrupted. You will always have access to your files which is the way it should be.
The cloudHQ service provides an automatic, continuous backup of all files and documents to a separate cloud account. Since the replication is continuous, this means when you add new files or documents to the account, or when you revise existing documents, the changes are replicated immediately. There is no daily, weekly or monthly manual backups like other cloud services offer. And the process is automated, it runs in the background completely transparent to you so you can continue your work uninterrupted as it churns along, dutifully replicating all your changes and additions. If you accidentally delete a file, or if a hacker deletes your files, or if any other reason causes data loss, you can instantly switch to the backup account and restore within seconds. If your main cloud service goes down for maintenance or other reasons, you can just switch to the backup account and continue your work uninterrupted. You will always have access to your files which is the way it should be.
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