One of our CosmoLex employees told me that he was using Microsoft Office 97 at home until last year, and was quite happy with it. When he got a new computer, he couldn’t get the software to install under Windows 8 so bought the latest version of the office suite. He admitted that the newest edition had countless features he didn’t even know existed because he had been using outdated software. It might have done the job but that didn’t mean it did the job as well as it could. The same concept applies to legal software such as CosmoLex. Here are a few signs it’s time to upgrade to new software.

No More Updates

Software companies can’t continue to maintain old titles. It’s not cost effective to keep updating the programming. While it might seem like you miss out only on a few new features, there is a more serious implication: security. The IT industry discovers new security threats every day and some of them make your legal billing program dangerously insecure. Clinging to old software threatens the privacy of your practice and your clients. If someone does hack your systems, you could face ethics charges if you are using outdated, insecure software.

No More Support

In a similar vein, developers eventually stop offering technical support for their products. This leaves you to handle any problems by yourself, and yet you probably don’t have the IT experience to do so. This becomes a bigger problem as the software ages because it becomes increasingly difficult to get old software to work with the latest computer hardware and operating systems.

No More Technologies

When you are using software developed before smartphones and tablets, then you can’t expect it to work with these new technologies. Attorneys are discovering that mobile devices allow them to access client information from anywhere, such as a courthouse or mediation meeting, and that gives them a big advantage over attorneys who don’t have that ease of access. Similarly, being able to use software from the cloud frees you from your desk and gives your practice more flexibility.

There are a number of other signs of outdated law office software, but these three reasons are the biggest red flags. You may love your current system, but if you ignore the advances in technology then you aren’t giving your practice the advantages it needs to remain competitive.