Over the past five years, cloud adoption has accelerated across the legal industry. ILTA’s 2025 Technology Survey paints a compelling picture of this transformation with key statistics such as:
- 76% of firms report their DMS is cloud-based.
- 90% of firms rely on Microsoft 365/Exchange Online as their primary email platform, reflecting near-universal adoption.
- 88% of firms now follow a “cloud-first” philosophy when upgrading core systems, underscoring the widespread move of business-critical applications like time and billing, into the cloud.
These figures highlight a growing shift to the cloud. However, this widespread adoption has also revealed the complexities of cloud migration. Concerns around security, performance, and cost continue to challenge firms, revealing a fragmented path to full cloud integration.
While some enterprise applications are becoming increasingly cloud-native, significant challenges remain when it comes to areas like finance, business intake, and conflicts systems. Integration architectures remain inconsistent and evolving cost models often give firms pause. The real challenge isn’t simply moving data from on-premises to cloud; it’s rethinking the entire architecture, governance, and operating model that underpins the business of law.
“Cloud Only” is the Wrong Approach
When considering cloud migration, it’s crucial that firms don’t treat it as an “all or nothing” decision. The reality for most firms is that a hybrid approach offers the best long-term strategy.
Rather than focusing on a binary decision between cloud or on-premises, firms should ask,
“What’s the right sequencing and which dependencies should we anticipate?”
These answers will vary depending on the size of the firm, its application portfolio, and its overall business strategy. Cloud adoption does not have a one-size-fits-all solution, so it won’t look the same for every firm.
Introducing FinOps to Cloud Migration Considerations
Cost presents a complex paradox: while it remains one of the top barriers to cloud adoption, it is also one of its biggest drivers. Many firms underestimate how moving from fixed to variable costs affects their budgets, and many don’t have the internal capabilities to effectively monitor cloud usage or manage spending in real time.
Financial operations, or “FinOps,” is a new function emerging within legal IT in response to cost management complexity. FinOps teams track costs, build usage-aware systems, automate the shutdown of idle environments, and integrate financial literacy into technology infrastructure decisions. This rise of FinOps highlights how cloud migration is not merely a technical upgrade but a systemic and cultural shift in legal operations.
Fragmented Integration Can Be Risky
As firms migrate more of their tools to the cloud, the integration landscape becomes exponentially more complex. Traditional point-to-point APIs that worked well in an on-prem environment may not scale effectively in the cloud, where systems are frequently updated and vendors control backend processes.
Firms that fail to map out and act on an integration strategy risk creating fragile systems that break when any one application changes.
Additionally, firms that don’t evolve data strategy in parallel with infrastructure may struggle to generate meaningful cross-platform reports.
Firms successful in cloud migration are treating adoption not as an endpoint but as an inflection point. Integration is an opportunity to reimagine how data flows, how applications communicate, and how decisions are made.
Information Governance as Cloud Groundwork
Information governance (IG) is one of the most overlooked expenses when it comes to the cloud. Firms that fail to implement a clear data retention strategy risk migrating more data than needed and therefore incurring storage fees and exposing themselves to unnecessary risk.
Thoughtful design is key. Firms need to rethink how data is stored, accessed, and why it is retained in the cloud.
Knowledge Management and IG teams must align on governance principles to ensure that data retention, access controls, and risk management strategies are fully adapted to the cloud environment.
What Comes Next in Cloud Migration
The adoption of cloud systems is no longer theoretical. Firms now face the critical task of evolving their systems, processes, and cultures in ways that are technically, financially, and operationally sustainable. As you begin mapping your firm’s next steps, consider these three guiding principles:
- The journey is yours. Don’t feel pressure to follow others’ timelines. Sequence migrations based on your firm’s priorities, contract cycles, and readiness.
- Design for the unknown. Build flexible architectures that can adapt to new tools, roles, and ways of working.
- Clarity is key. Understand your data, integration requirements, and governance framework. Be willing to embrace change.
The firms that succeed won’t necessarily be the first to arrive in the cloud. Instead, they’ll be the ones who take a thoughtful, strategic approach to getting there, adapting as they go, and embracing long-term opportunities.
Christopher Young is a Senior Director of Legal Technology + Operations at Harbor. He presented on this topic at ILTACON 2025, during a session called “Cloud First or Cloud Only? What’s Achievable?" He has led many of the nearly 500 cloud migration projects delivered by Harbor for leading law firms in the UK and globally.
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