One of our ongoing challenges has been to explain the obvious benefits of cloud computing in the legal environment. Judging from last week’s ABA Techshow in Chicago, it seems that the world has finally caught up. It was great to see other cloud computing vendors getting recognition, as well as meeting some of newcomers to the field. (Although we we interested to see new companies claiming to be “Cloud Computing Pioneers.”)
The ABA Techshow is a great event because it offers more substantive sessions and more information for small and solo lawyers than most other industry events. As in years past, Nextpoint was in attendance to promote cloud computing and our services, including CEO Rakesh Madhava’s presentation “Cloud Computing for Lawyers.” After the show, Sean Doherty had a great writeup for Law.com on Nextpoint’s newest service offering, Discovery Cloud WIRE. Techshow regular Sharon Nelson has a nice summary of other announcements from the show on her Ride the Lightning blog.
Nextpoint sponsored the cloud computing track, which was one of the best-attended and most popular group of sessions. Topics included cloud security and starting a virtual law firm. Some attendees asked questions that made it clear they still run a paper-based office and are nowhere near ready to launch an all cloud-based virtual law firm. But a number of others indicated they are either using cloud applications or are seriously considering moving more of their operations to a cloud platform. It will be interesting to see how much these early adopters accelerate the adoption of cloud computing by next year’s event.
