Most law office setups have a file server to store files locally in the office that serves files out to desktop client workstations throughout the office. GoMatters network speeds are faster than even the most sophisticated office network setups. The bottom line is our stuff is just faster and more powerful… a lot faster and more powerful than the average law office.

When you match our network speed with the organizational skills of our practice management system, you get something we like to call “real office speed”. Real office speed is a combination of machine time and human time to complete a real office task.

Take for example finding a word document on your desktop. What’s the real office speed of finding a client document on your desktop? In most cases you’re looking at finding the file in one of two ways, directly looking through your system file finder like Mac OS X’s Finder or searching for the document through your word processor’s “Open” file link. Either way, you’re now at the mercy of your office file storage structure and the file naming conventions of those in your office. Don’t forget, if your word processor is not open, you’ve got to add time for that. Even the best setups make you look for a documents folder… click… look for a client folder… click… look for a case folder… click… look for a file folder! There it is, finally! The file folder. Have some office fun this Friday and time yourself and those in your office and see what the average lookup time is for a file in a folder.

Now our way of doing things… Matters app > type the first two or three letters of a client name… there it is… click the Matter, now Matter > Documents… and there it is… faster than a desktop.

First things first… what is cloud computing? To understand cloud computing, you first need to know about “the Cloud”. Breaking it down as simply as possibly means “the Cloud” is the internet and the internet, as every two year old knows nowadays, is an endless array of computers linked together. Cloud computing takes advantage of that endless array of computer power and storage capacity and moves data storage and the applications to manipulate the data off of your local computer and onto remote computers that are part of “the Cloud”. By removing the data from your computer and storing it in a secure environment, you reduce the likelihood of drive failure or data loss while increasing data accessibility and convenience.

Think email.

Chances are your law firm is using a web based email service like Gmail. Gmail is cloud computing. The Gmail application to read your email is not stored on your local law office computer, but is accessed through the web browser on your computer. The data that comprises your email is not stored on your local hard drive, but is saved on Google’s Gmail servers. Storing the data in that secure setting allows you to access your data from wherever and whenever you want.

Cloud computing is not “remote computing” that some people are already familiar with. “Remote computing” is the process of logging into a computer at another location and accessing that computer alone. VPN’s and services like GoToMyPC are “remote computing” solutions. “Remote computing” does not share many of the advantages of cloud applications like GoMatters. “Remote computing” does not prevent against data loss through hardware failure. VPN’s can also be difficult to setup correctly.

GoMatters is cloud computing for lawyers. GoMatters stores your data on secure servers across the globe. Because your law firm data is stored in “the Cloud”, you can access your law firm data securely and conveniently anywhere, anytime.

The GoMatters servers are made to maximize the speed and efficiency at which your law office data can be stored, accessed and distributed. Storing your data on your local networks and maintaining those networks is an inefficient use of both your time and energy… and energy consumption! An inefficient data center or server like the one in your law office increases your office energy needs and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.

GoMatters allows your law practice to cut down on physical data storage space in your office that can be used for other things besides housing clunky, loud servers. By centralizing computer processing power in our data centers, economies of scale are achieved and overall power consumption is reduced.

The “paperless law office” is as far from reality as a flying car, but GoMatters can help green your office by reducing paper consumption. Your case files may never be totally paperless, but you can certainly reduce the size of the files by storing your contacts, tasks and events in GoMatters. Creating an easily accessible digital case file with GoMatters is one easy step you can make towards making your law office green.

The truth is most law offices operate their computer networks like most home computer users – rarely if ever is a system backed up properly. And even rarer still is the chance that someone in your law office knows how to restore a backup.

There are basically two types of setups for your small to mid-size law office network – a peer to peer network where each computer shares resources and files with other computers on the network or a server based network where one centralized computer stores your law office data in one location that is accessed by users throughout your office. If you have a setup where you are sharing files from computer to computer, to backup your system safely, you need to be backing up every computer in your office. If you have 10 computers in your office with data on them, you need to backup all ten.

If everyone in your office is saving data to a server, your network setup costs and management may be more difficult, but your backup scenarios are less complicated. But having all of your data in one central location like your server creates a single point of failure for all of your data. If you server goes, your data goes with it. Not too much of a problem if you are backing up all of your data and keeping redundant copies offsite in a safe place and have another backup server on standby ready to be fired up at a moment’s notice… what? Your office doesn’t do that? You better. Your data is your practice.

No matter what your office network setup looks like, you need to make copies of your data backup and store the backup copies offsite. Offsite backups guard against loss of data by fires, flood, theft and other physical threats to your data.

GoMatters provides an easy solution to doing away with the hassle of backing up your law office data. All data stored in GoMatters is dispersed on our secure servers around the world. Multiple redundant copies of data stored with GoMatters means your data will never face the single point of failure problems an office server creates. Computer hardware failures in your office do nothing to your data stored with GoMatters. Data stored in GoMatters is always available no matter what computer you are using.