Want to know what the large firm members of ILTA (100+ attys) are purchasing in the next 12 months? What they implemented in the last 12 months? How they make IT purchasing decisions? Which legal trade and IT publications they keep at their desk? And what vendors they feel have given exceptional customer service?

Again this year, we have partnered with ILTA to conduct their annual member purchasing survey and now you can download the 2008 ILTA Legal Technology Purchasing Survey for free! We presented the findings at the Vendor Program we produce with ILTA at the ILTA Annual Conference and have received a very positive response from the vendor community. We encourage you to download the full report, but here are a few snippets to get the juices flowing …

• Budgets continue to increase for most firms, but at a slower pace than in past years.  Notably, less firms are allocating 5+% of their budgets on IT.

• Firms are closely measuring IT spending and using per-attorney technology expenditures as benchmark data.  We added IT spend based on revenue and per attorney technology spend and compared to UK trends.

• Big winners in the technology implementation and purchasing categories are Virtualization and SharePoint.

• ILTA whitepapers are on everybody’s mind with 80% readership.

• Third party consultants are actively involved in firm IT project especially with implementations and, to a lesser degree, aiding in the technology selection process.

• Staffing shortages and e-mail management continue to challenge IT staffs as do M&A activity and storage needs, especially with the volumes of email.

The value and power of the information contained in this survey is based on ILTA member and vendor feedback so please let us know how we can improve upon this research and make necessary changes to keep this information pertinent.