Hi and welcome to the last Orange Rag newsletter of the year! Without wishing to sound too pessimistic, if we thought 2020 was awful, 2021 hasn’t lived up to our hopes of returning back to ‘normal’, whatever normal is. However, it has continued to force law firms to modernise, including moving their core systems to the cloud. Take a look in our top stories at some of the key findings of a cloud report written by Macfarlanes’ CIO Andrew Powell – the predictions for the number of firms shifting their core systems off premises are quite remarkable, although US law firms are notably not as far down the track.
And so it is with some trepidation that we turn our focus to 2022. Take a look at our predictions and forecasts for next year – close to 40 legal IT decision makers have shared their opinions with us as to what 2022 will hold, and what their top priorities will be. It will come as no surprise that a big focus is on making hybrid working ‘work’ – but what does that really mean in practice?
Last but not least, we have decided to announce the winners of our charity auction for The Children’s Family Trust at a virtual drinks gathering at the end of January. There is still time to donate, and bidding will take place in January to give us something to look forward to after Christmas. See below for more details.
Have a very happy holiday and well-deserved break. We look forward to seeing you all in January.
Caroline, Editor-in-chief, Legal IT Insider