Managed IT for law firms, run by the people who run your case management system
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Big Mode Consulting works only with legal teams: law firms, in-house legal departments, and government legal offices. One stop for all your firm's tech: we work inside your case management and document systems, manage your users and devices, and train your team to get the most from what you already pay for. 100% in-house, US-based team. Every engagement is scoped and quoted to your firm.
The gap most firms are paying for
Most firms end up with two vendors and one stack.
The MSP handles laptops, email, and backups, and has never opened your case management system. The legal technology consultant builds your workflows and has no idea why the scanner stopped talking to the server. Everything that actually breaks lives in the seam between them. Both vendors are honestly, contractually correct that it isn't their job. So the ticket bounces, and while it bounces the paralegal builds a workaround in a spreadsheet that nobody else knows about. Meanwhile the intake automation nobody owns has been quietly dropping leads for four months.
We took that seam and made it the job.
What's included
Inside your systems
Your case management system is where the work happens, so that's where we work. Clio, Filevine, MyCase, and PracticePanther: fields, templates, deadline chains, permissions, reports, and cleanup of everything that has drifted since implementation. Plus your document management, intake pipeline, Microsoft 365, and the integrations between them.
Managing your people
Onboarding and offboarding, accounts, permissions, and MFA, laptops and phones, endpoint monitoring, patching, and backup verification. Your staff get a help desk that already knows your stack, and we manage your technology vendors so you don't have to.
Enablement
Software only pays off when people use it. We train your team on the systems you already pay for, document how your firm actually works, roll out AI tools safely, and write the policies your carrier and clients ask about.
All of it runs on a standing monthly cadence: scheduled work every month, not a number you call once something is already on fire.
Coverage and support hours
Support follows your firm's business hours. Most firms only need help while their people are working. If yours needs 24/7, we'll price it.
- Business hours: 9 to 5 in your time zone, from California to Washington, DC and everywhere in between
- 24/7 coverage: priced separately for firms that need it
- Team: 100% in-house and US-based, working fully remote
- Onboarding: 2 to 4 weeks for most firms
Why Law Firms Choose Managed IT
Predictable Monthly Costs
Replace unpredictable IT expenses with a fixed monthly fee that includes everything, no surprise invoices for emergencies or overtime.
Reduced Downtime
Proactive monitoring and maintenance prevents issues before they cause outages. Downtime is one of the most expensive line items a firm never budgets for.
PingdomFaster Issue Resolution
With dedicated resources and established processes, we fix problems quicker than an overloaded internal IT person juggling a dozen other things.
How engagements are priced
Every firm we support is scoped individually. What moves the number is how many people you have, which systems you run, and how much of your case management and intake work you want inside the monthly scope rather than billed separately.
Most firms settle on a flat monthly retainer with a defined block of hands on work included, so the invoice reads the same whether it was a quiet month or a loud one. Firms that need strategic direction as well as execution usually run this alongside a fractional CTO engagement.
Tell us what you are running and we will put a number to it. If a cheaper generalist would serve you better, we will say so.
Scope detail by headcount lives on managed IT by firm size, and the security side of the scope is broken out on cybersecurity for law firms.
Is this a fit?
This works for firms where the case management system is central to how work gets done, and where a week of broken intake costs more than the support contract does.
Wrong fit if you want the lowest per seat helpdesk rate on the market. Providers specialize in exactly that and they will beat us on price every time. Ask and we will name one.
Legal Software We Support
Generic MSPs Google your case management software while you wait. We do not. Our team holds certifications and has run real implementations across every platform on this list.
Practice Management
We hold Clio Certified Consultant and Filevine Certified credentials and support every major platform.
- Clio
- Filevine
- MyCase
- PracticePanther
- Smokeball
Document Management
Implementation, migration, and ongoing support for the document systems law firms actually use.
- iManage
- NetDocuments
- Worldox
- SharePoint
Communications
VoIP, video, and productivity suites tuned for legal workflows and recording requirements.
- RingCentral
- Dialpad
- Microsoft 365
- Google Workspace
Cloud Platforms
Architecture, security, and cost optimization across the three major hyperscalers.
- AWS
- Azure
- Google Cloud
ABA & Compliance Coverage Included
Compliance is not a bolt on. Every engagement includes the controls, documentation, and audit trails that map to your bar's rules and your cyber insurance carrier's requirements.
ABA Model Rule 1.6 (Confidentiality)
Access logging, audit trails, and documented controls that demonstrate the reasonable efforts standard.
ABA Model Rule 1.1 / Comment 8 (Technology Competence)
Quarterly technology reviews plus CLE-ready documentation you can hand to your bar.
State bar cybersecurity opinions
Encryption, MFA, and incident response calibrated to NY Op. 1019, CA Formal Op. 2010-179, and your jurisdiction's specifics.
HIPAA (matters touching healthcare)
Business Associate Agreements folded into our MSA, plus access logs and breach notification procedures for PI, employment, and elder law practices.
In-House IT vs. Managed Services
Many firms assume hiring an internal IT person is the best approach. Here's how that compares to a managed services partnership, the math often surprises people.
| Consideration | In-House IT | Managed Services |
|---|---|---|
| Annual IT Costs | Salary, benefits, and training for a full time hire | One predictable monthly fee, typically well below a salaried hire |
| Coverage Hours | Standard business week, with vacation gaps | Your business hours, nationwide. 24/7 priced separately if you need it |
| Expertise Breadth | One person's knowledge limitations | Full team of specialists across all disciplines |
| Scalability | Hire/fire to adjust capacity | Instantly scale up or down |
| Technology Investment | Additional capital expenses | Enterprise tools included in service |
Managed IT vs. a typical MSP vs. a fractional CTO
Firms often weigh these three. Here's how they differ.
| Capability | Typical MSP | Big Mode managed IT | Fractional CTO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it serves | Any small business | Legal teams only | Firms that need technology leadership |
| Help desk, devices, Microsoft 365 | Yes | Yes | Oversees it, doesn't run it day to day |
| Work inside your case management system | Rarely | Yes. Clio Certified and Filevine Certified | Sets priorities |
| Users, access, and MFA | Yes | Yes | Sets policy |
| Training and enablement | Rarely | Yes | Plans adoption |
| Platform selection, roadmap, vendor decisions | No | Recommends | Owns it |
Many firms run managed IT and a fractional CTO engagement together.
Who Managed IT Services Are For
Managed IT services are ideal for law firms that have outgrown the "call someone when it breaks" model but aren't large enough to justify a full internal IT department. Solo practitioners with cloud-based practices, small firms with 5 to 20 users, and mid-size firms with complex multi-office environments all benefit from the predictable pricing and comprehensive coverage that managed services provide.
If your firm relies on case management platforms like Clio, Filevine, or PracticePanther, managed IT ensures those systems stay updated, integrated, and performing optimally. If you're storing client documents in the cloud, managed IT includes the security monitoring and backup protocols that protect attorney-client privilege. And if your team wastes time on IT issues instead of billable work, managed IT gives them a single number to call for fast, competent help.
We also work with firms going through transitions, opening new offices, migrating to new platforms, or scaling up after a merger. During these high-stakes periods, having a dedicated IT partner who understands legal technology makes the difference between a smooth transition and weeks of lost productivity.
IT Consulting for Law Firms
Most engagements with new firms start as IT consulting for law firms before they ever become a full managed contract. Partners want a sober second opinion on a case management migration, a sluggish iManage instance, a failed Microsoft 365 rollout, or a cyber insurance questionnaire they cannot answer honestly. We run discovery against your actual environment, document the gap between where you are and where ABA Rule 1.6 and your carrier expect you to be, and hand back a prioritized roadmap with real dollar figures attached.
Typical consulting engagements include vendor selection (Clio vs. Filevine vs. PracticePanther), document management migrations (Worldox to iManage, on-prem file shares to NetDocuments), Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace tenant design, identity and access cleanup, and remediation plans after a security incident. We do not resell hardware or take kickbacks from the platforms we evaluate, which is why firms keep us in the room when the recommendations get expensive.
When you need IT consulting vs. full managed IT
Consulting is the right fit when you have a finite project (a migration, an audit, a renewal) and an internal team or existing MSP to operate what we recommend. Managed IT is the right fit when the day-to-day operating burden is the problem, not the strategy.
Legal IT Infrastructure Management
Legal IT infrastructure management covers the physical and cloud systems that everything else runs on: identity (Microsoft Entra, Okta, Google), endpoints (Windows, macOS, mobile), file and document management (iManage, NetDocuments, SharePoint, Worldox), networking (firewalls, switches, Wi-Fi, VPN, SD-WAN), and the cloud tenants where most of your data actually lives.
We standardize every device into a documented build, enforce configuration via Intune / Jamf / Workspace ONE, and keep a living inventory of every account, license, and integration. That documentation is what makes onboarding a new attorney a 30-minute task, offboarding a departing partner a same-day cutoff, and a bar audit a one-meeting answer instead of a six-week reconstruction.
IT Disaster Recovery for Law Firms
Ransomware, hardware failure, accidental deletion of a matter folder, a flooded server closet, a SaaS vendor outage during a filing deadline: any of these can stop a firm cold. Our disaster recovery model is built on the 3-2-1 backup rule (three copies, two media, one offsite), with recovery targets set per firm.
We also write and rehearse the incident response plan that your cyber insurance carrier (and increasingly your largest clients) now require. That includes vendor call trees, breach notification timelines aligned to state law and ABA Formal Opinion 483, and a tabletop exercise at least once a year so the first time your partners walk through a ransomware scenario is not during an actual ransomware scenario.
What disaster recovery looks like in practice
- Immutable, offsite backups of all Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace data and case management exports
- Image-level backups of any on-prem server, with bare-metal restore tested quarterly
- Documented WISP and incident response plan kept current with your carrier's requirements
- Annual tabletop exercise with partners, office manager, and outside counsel as needed
Network Monitoring for Law Firms
Network monitoring for law firms is more than ping checks on a router. We instrument the firewall, switches, access points, ISP circuits, and VPN tunnels with SNMP and flow data, then correlate that with endpoint and cloud telemetry so we can answer the question attorneys actually ask: "why is Clio slow right now?" Most of the time the answer is not Clio. It is a saturated uplink, a misconfigured QoS rule, a Wi-Fi channel collision in the conference room, or an ISP routing issue between your office and the case management vendor's region.
We also watch the cloud side: tenant health for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, SaaS vendor status for Clio, Filevine, iManage, NetDocuments, RingCentral, and Dialpad, plus the integrations between them. When a third-party API goes down at 7:30 a.m. on a filing day, we usually know before the help desk phone rings.
Nationwide Coverage
Big Mode serves legal teams across the United States from a 100% in-house, US-based team that works fully remote. Support follows your firm's business hours, 9 to 5 local time from California to Washington, DC. If you need 24/7, we'll price it. We don't maintain branch offices; we maintain a team that already knows your stack.
Frequently Asked Questions
Free 30 Minute IT Assessment
Tell us about your firm. We will model your actual managed IT cost based on your size, current stack, and case management software. No obligation, no sales pressure.
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About the Author
Mauro Gonzalez is the founder of Big Mode Consulting with over a decade of experience in legal technology and enterprise IT. As a Clio Certified Consultant and Filevine implementation specialist, he has helped 50+ law firms modernize their technology stacks. He specializes in case management implementation, managed IT services, and ABA-compliant cybersecurity solutions.