Much like winter, IT outsourcing is coming to law firms looking to cull internal salary dollars. But as the types of systems that firms are deploying internally continue to become more complex, downsizing internal tech support too severely could leave attorneys in a jam at a time when good help is both expensive and hard to find. 

Gulam Zade, chief legal officer at Frontline Managed Services, cautioned firms against cutting internal IT staff just to save money. "Not only will your services suffer, but you'll have [attorneys] who are just not being supported properly," he said.