6 Reasons Why Your Legal Practice Needs an MSP
Legal practices are changing. In fact, 40% plan on increasing their tech investment in 2026. This increase coincides with the rise of AI adoption, the growing demand for improved data management, and a critical need for cybersecurity.
But investing in all that tech takes time, budgeting, and expertise—things a small in-house IT team may struggle with.
That’s where managed service providers (MSPs) come in.
But how exactly can an MSP help your legal practice tackle these technical challenges? Let’s break it down.
1. AI Adoption
According to a survey conducted by the Federal Bar Association, 31% of individual legal professionals use generative AI at work. That said, there are three major barriers holding small legal practices back from full AI adoption:
- Cost
- Upfront and continuous training
- Security concerns
Any one of these points may lead you to delay adopting AI into your legal practice, but the longer you wait, the farther ahead the competition will be.
How an MSP can help
An MSP can help law firms adopt AI safely by implementing clear usage policies, providing staff training, and bolstering data security. This lets firms benefit from AI safely without having to build their own internal AI team.
2. Tech-Savvy Competition
Today’s legal clients are spoiled for choice. For example, Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) offer clients fast, specialized, and cost-efficient legal solutions through simple, online platforms.
Clients now expect quick responses, transparent pricing, and easy digital access to their cases. That means keeping up requires the right technical infrastructure—something not every small legal practice has. Practices that rely on outdated systems risk losing business to competitors who make legal services more accessible.
How an MSP can help
An MSP can help your law firm build flexible and scalable systems that support modern client expectations. By integrating the right tech, like customer portals, improved online payment systems, and virtual tools, MSPs help legal practices compete and retain clients.
3. Tight timelines
Court deadlines, client expectations, document turnaround…all of it comes to a screeching halt when systems go down. It falls on your legal practice to get up and running, and fast.
When your practice is handling a sensitive case, your clients won’t care about an outage—they’re paying for your services after all. Beyond the immense cost of downtime, delayed filing and compliance issues can seriously damage your practice’s credibility.
How an MSP can help
MSPs improve business continuity through three major avenues:
- Disaster recovery: A proper disaster recovery plan provides a playbook for getting your legal practice back up and running ASAP.
- Data Backups: Data backups allow your practice to recover any lost, corrupted, or accidentally deleted data.
- Cybersecurity: With strong cybersecurity, your practice can stay resilient in the face of cybercrime like malware and ransomware.
Setting your legal practice up with these pillars of business continuity means taking on cases without having to worry about unplanned outages.
4. Sensitive Data
20% of U.S. law firms were hit by cyberattacks in the past 12 months. That’s because intellectual property, financial records, and client communications make tempting targets for cybercriminals. Without proper safeguards, it’s not a matter of if you’ll be targeted, but when.
How an MSP can help
It takes far more than antivirus software to keep the threats at bay—and any good MSP knows this. Properly securing your law firm means adopting a layered approach. From multi-factor authentication to encryption, an MSP can set your law firm up with a full suite of security solutions to protect your business and your clients.
5. Data Organization
From contracts and emails to case files, law firms work with thousands of documents. Keeping track of everything can be a serious chore for any small law firm, and storing it all safely can be expensive. And because of legal rules, you can’t just delete old files for convenience.
How an MSP can help
An MSP can outfit your practice with secure, easy-to-access storage that scales with your needs. Smart cloud-based systems can also move older, rarely used files to more affordable storage without affecting your day-to-day.
6. Compliance Concerns
Compliance regulations are constantly changing, and keeping up can be difficult for a busy legal practice. From licensing and financial rules to trust accounts, ethical standards, and data requirements, there’s a lot to manage, and falling out of compliance can lead to reputational damage and costly fines.
How an MSP can help
An MSP stays on top of both general regulations, like HIPAA, and industry-specific rules, such as Trust Account Regulations. Using tools like organized data systems and endpoint management software, an MSP helps your practice prepare for audits, maintain proper record-keeping, and stay compliant so you can focus on serving your clients.
A Case for an MSP
Legal practices are changing, and technology is taking center stage. Partnering with an MSP means making sure your practice can scale and adapt to modern demands while staying compliant and secure.
At The 20 MSP, we’ve been helping law firms optimize their IT environments to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and profitability. Choosing an IT partner is a business decision, and we take immense pride in tailoring IT solutions that actually help your firm run more smoothly as a whole.
If you’re looking for a trusted partner, we’re more than happy to talk details.
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About The 20 MSP
As a leading provider of managed IT services, The 20 MSP serves thousands of businesses nationwide, including single and multi-location organizations, delivering white-glove service, secure and streamlined IT infrastructure, and 24/7/365 support. We believe in building lasting relationships with clients founded on trust, communication, and the delivery of high-value services for a fair and predictable price. Our clients’ success is our success, and we are committed to helping each and every organization we serve leverage technology to secure a competitive advantage and achieve new growth.
