Law Department Management Blog
Early in the data collection this year for the GC Metrics benchmark survey, 69 law departments stated how many years they had been using their matter management system. The average number of years those departments had had their system installed was 6.4 years. Later, with 652 law departments in the survey, twice as many (139) had submitted longevity data. The average dropped a year, to 5.4, and the median number of years was 4. The law department with the longest history of a matter management system had just reached the two decade mark!
Given the cost, diversion of time and energy, and risks that face law departments when they license and install a matter management system, it surprises me to see a five-year average life. But it could be that several of these law departments had another system before the current one, so their average years of using that kind of software is higher. The question asked only about the current system and how many years since its installation date.