Before signing, a law firm should get written answers to 16 questions covering five areas: the contract term and exit, response times, cost, client confidentiality, and onboarding and offboarding. Lawyers read contracts for a living, so this list is built to be checked against the agreement itself, not the sales pitch.
Here's how Tomorrow's Technology Today answers the ones that matter most:
At $200 to $350 per user, a 12-person firm pays $2,400 to $4,200 per month.
The agreement is built so that our performance, not a competing quote, decides whether you can leave.
1. How long is the term, and what happens if the provider doesn't perform? Ask any provider this directly. Plenty of contracts protect the provider; fewer protect the client. Be wary of "no contract at all," too. Here's why "nothing to sign" is a red flag.
2. What happens to our data, passwords, and documentation if we leave? With us, you own your data and your environment documentation, including network diagrams, configurations, asset inventories, and credential records.
3. Will you work with our next provider? Yes. We provide up to 30 days of transition assistance, returning your data, documentation, and credentials and working directly with your new provider. Transition assistance is billed at hourly rates.
4. What's the guaranteed response time for a critical issue, and where is it written down? Ours is on the managed services proposal you sign, for the service level you buy, and applies during business hours.
5. Who answers the phone? A live technician answers from 7am to 5pm on business days. Not a ticket queue.
6. What happens after hours? An answering service tracks down a technician, and after-hours work is handled remotely.
7. What's billed outside the monthly fee? Get the exclusions list in writing. Ours covers personal and home devices we didn't set up, software with lapsed vendor maintenance, damage from misuse, theft, fire, water, or power events, training classes, and writing your own procedures.
8. How are price changes decided? We don't use a fixed annual increase. Pricing is reviewed during your annual technology planning review, and a well-run environment may see no increase. Documented increases in third-party licensing costs are passed through with 30 days' written notice.
9. How are users counted? A user is anyone with a full Microsoft 365 license, such as Business Premium.
Two more things worth asking about: we never charge for a technician's drive time back from an onsite visit, and the first hour of vendor support is included.
Under Ohio Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6(c), lawyers must make reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized disclosure of, or access to, client information. Your IT provider is part of how you meet that duty.
10. Are your technicians background-checked? Every technician on our team, and our owner, is security-trained to CJIS standards and background-checked.
11. How often do you test that backups actually restore? Every backup gets a full restore test every other week, with a screenshot of the restored system as proof.
12. What confidentiality commitments are in the agreement? Ours explicitly covers attorney-client privileged materials and client information. We use your data only to deliver services, never disclose it without your written consent, and return or destroy it on request. Subcontractors with access are bound by terms at least as protective. If a confirmed security incident involves your data, we notify you within 72 hours. And we sign a nondisclosure agreement before running a security assessment of your network.
13. Does the provider require you to carry cyber insurance? We do: our agreement requires clients to carry at least $2 million in cyber liability coverage. We'd rather tell you now than have you find it in the fine print.
14. What does onboarding look like, and who runs it? Our Great Start onboarding runs about 10 weeks, with a dedicated project manager and technician.
15. How do you take over from our current provider? We rebuild your documentation through our own audit rather than relying on the outgoing provider's notes, set a firm cutover date, and work directly with the outgoing provider.
16. What does offboarding include? A formal 31-step offboarding project, plus the transition assistance described in question 3.
If you're asking these questions because something already feels off, here are 7 signs it's time to replace your IT provider.
Before: A 10-person manufacturing firm in Lima, Ohio was getting no direction from its IT provider. The provider's only guidance was a list of what to upgrade next, including a recommendation to replace the firm's server.
The switch: We brought the firm through Great Start onboarding. During onboarding, we found the firm didn't need a new server: its applications could move to the cloud and its files to Microsoft 365. When the firm was ready, we quoted the migration as a separate flat-rate project.
After: The server replacement was never needed. The firm now has a documented 1-year technology plan and a 3-year vision for where its technology is headed, with planning reviews included in its monthly fee.
See how we support law firms across Ohio and Indiana.
Want to see our agreement before you sign anything? Book a 10-minute discovery call. Call us at (419) 678-2083 or visit www.TomTechToday.com/discoverycall to schedule yours.