Open Source for your law practice
Whenever I learn about a tool I want in my legal practice, I immediately look for an open-source alternative. Tools for lawyers tend to be expensive (dare I say, overpriced?). Understandably, you might think a specialized tool is required to manage your law practice.
Whenever I learn about a tool I want in my legal practice, I immediately look for an open-source alternative.
Tools for lawyers tend to be expensive (dare I say, overpriced?). Understandably, you might think a specialized tool is required to manage your law practice. That might be true occasionally, but attorney-specific software isn't necessary to manage clients. The same goes for quite a few other functions. After all, we're not the only industry with ethical requirements. But based on price, you'd think lawyers were the only people on the planet running a business!
That's not the case, and often the solution is so broadly applicable that development communities will come together to provide a solution that everyone can use — for free. As the open-source movement grows, businesses are also turning towards releasing software as open-source software.
You might think that there is a catch with open-source software or at least an issue that makes it unusable for law practice. Usually, though, the business benefits from the community contributions and can still make a profit by managing the I.T.-ness of it all.
Open-source software is free for anyone to use and modify. This means that anyone can contribute to improving the software, making it more useful for everyone. Open-source software is also more reliable and secure than proprietary software because anyone can audit the code for security vulnerabilities.
There are many reasons to choose open source technology over propriety software. Some of those reasons include:
- Cost - open source software is usually free or has a minimal cost compared to propriety software.
- Freedom - open-source software gives firms the freedom to make changes and modifications as they need, without requiring third-party permissions.
- Openness - lawyers can be assured that popular open-source software won't likely contain any hidden code or malicious software.
- Security - because open-source software can be scrutinized by anyone, security flaws are usually found and fixed quickly.
- Support - you can usually find help and support for open-source software free from online communities.
Businesses benefit from open source technology because it is usually more affordable, flexible, secure, and supported than propriety software.
You can often pay for a company to deploy and host your open-source software for you, and often for a steal of a rate. Alternatively, you can deploy and host the technology yourself via cloud services to reduce the cost even further. Additionally, you have more control over what your tools are capable of.
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