Yesterday Apersee hosted a webinar on  Purchasing Decisions for e-Discovery.

The webinar focused on law firms moving their litigation environments to the cloud and  we thought we’d share the most salient points of the presentation with you, so here they are.

Frank Spadafino, CIO of Epstein Becker Green, made the point that “you use more things in the cloud than you realize – eFax, Postini,” etc. So why is moving to the cloud so scary? Well, it doesn’t have to be. Spadafino recommends,  as with any contract negotiation, that you be very clear up front about what it was that was important to you. If you’re upfront, clear, and you know what’s important to your firm you’re on the right track.

“Having clear delineation of who does what is important,” added Joan Washburn, Director of Litigation at Holland & Knight. “There has to be clearly defined roles and responsibilities.”

Once you have a better idea of what your firm is looking for, it’s time to take a close look at potential providers. Washburn was adamant that you do your due diligence, understand what costs will be, and gather your facts and your metrics.

So what requirements should you consider when making a decision?

• Confidence in security and procedures.
• Complete confidence in the stability of the platform. Does the provider offer any guarantees?
• A company with a good reputation. How long have they been around? What do your peers say about their experience with this company?
• Make sure that the solution complies with security points on which you’re audited by the client.
• Responsiveness of the provider’s customer service team is crucial.

In essence, be prepared and know what questions to ask. Have your checklist ready in order to make sure that the hosted environment will work for your firm. Not sure what to ask? Read our article that explains cloud computing in relation to e-discovery and the legal world. The end of the piece has a solid list of sample questions to build off of when going through the vetting process.