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Making the world a moreproductiveplaceArticle prepared for TLOMA
 
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 An overview of Software-as-a-Servicefor law firms.
Since the day personal computers were first introduced to lawyers, technologyhas played an increasingly important role in the legal profession. Software foremail management, case and practice management, time and billing, documentmanagement and customer relationship management forms an integral.As new waves of technology surface, the traditional software model is beginningto be challenged. One contending model is known as Software
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as
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a
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Service, orSaaS (pronounced ‘sass’). In the last few years, SaaS has received widespread.in a few key areas: high upfront licensing costs, long setup and integrationtimes, expensive maintenance and support agreements and less
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than
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intuitiveuser interfaces. As the name implies, SaaS applications are not sold throughtraditional means, but rather accessed through the Internet on a pay
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per
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use. , ,such as Amazon and Google, to host the applications, eliminating the need forlaw firms to buy and maintain infrastructure to support the software. Cloudcomputing, under which SaaS is categorized, allows software vendors to focuson building software by providing them access to server farms (also called the‘ ’ .legal space.
 
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Functionality and User Experience
Traditional software (also known as on
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premise software) applications oftenoffer a com rehensive set of features that on avera e o above and be ondthe particular business needs of a law firm. Depending on how established avendor is, current SaaS applications (also known as hosted solutions) offer fewerbut an essential set of features that can be delivered through a comparable, andoften times better, experience through the Internet. Since SaaS applications arebuilt from the round
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u the strive to offer an exce tional user ex eriencewhich generally cannot be found in traditional legal software. As the technologyto deliver applications over the Internet improves, we can expect to see littledifference between desktop applications and SaaS applications.With SaaS a lications users ex erience little to no downtime or interru tion
 
when software is updated or upgraded. This is unlike the traditional softwaremodel where new versions of the application have to be purchased fromvendors and implemented regularly, depending on both business needs andpriorities. The IT team often undertakes long and expensive implementation,users within the firm. SaaS vendors help to alleviate the IT headaches associatedwith usability, technical support, and integration
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resulting in significant costbenefits for the firm.
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