Office 2010 for law firms - the end is nigh

25 Feb 2020

Office 2010 for law firms – the end is nigh

Microsoft Office 2010 for law firms will soon be a thing of the past. Or at least it should be if you value your business.

From 13 October 2020, Microsoft will end support for Office 2020. This also means that 2010 users will not be able to connect to Office 365. All of this comes hot on the heels of Microsoft’s recent withdrawal of support for Windows 7. You can find out more about that in our recent article.

There’s nothing unusual about this sort of thing. Software products over 9 or 10 years old are usually withdrawn. Since many of you will have upgraded years ago, the impact should be either minimal or non-existent. However, if you haven’t upgraded, it’s worth looking at the consequences of not doing so.

Consequences.

Failing to upgrade end of life software can be a costly oversight. Users of out-of-warranty products will no longer receive security updates, patches or help from Microsoft. This places both your and your clients’ data at increased risk from hackers.

There are further issues to consider. Your practice, case or document management system templates may well be incompatible with newer versions of Office. It’s worth looking at this and planning your upgrades and investment now. October is not far away.

Options.

You only have three ways to go with this:

Upgrade to Office 2016, Office 2019 or Office 365.
Take out an Extended Security Updates policy from Microsoft through their Cloud Solution Provider program.
Do nothing and hope for the best.

Let’s be honest – 3. is not an option. It might initially be the cheapest, but the costs of security breach are potentially incalculable. 2. might sound appealing but do look at the costs of going down this route. Extended support does not come cheap. It will not last forever, and you will eventually have to bite the bullet and upgrade. We recommend that you head straight for the upgrade option for your peace of mind.

A 4th Option?

Hopefully upgrading to a more recent version of Microsoft Office will not be too challenging to your cashflow. However, you could look at an alternative – cloud-based practice management software. LawCloud software provides a complete practice management, time recording, billing and accounts package to cover all your legal business needs. LawCloud is designed to work seamlessly with Office. It allows you to drag and drop emails and other documents directly into your case files. Most importantly, it includes the cost of Microsoft licences for the entire Microsoft Office Suite.

That means you don’t need to worry about updating Office now or ever again. As new patches, updates and versions become available for Office, they are automatically applied at no additional cost.

Take a look at how LawCloud integrates with MS Office by following this link.

Mike O’Donnell, February 2020.

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