IT Support for In-House Teams at Law Firms
Some law firms have an in-house IT lead or a small IT team. They know the firm, the staff, and the day-to-day rhythms.
Co-managed IT is a model where ALT works alongside your internal team. We don't replace them. We extend their capability in the areas where specialization matters most.
Why Firms Add ALT to an In-House Team
Internal IT earns trust by being present. What one person or a small team can't carry alone is the specialized depth modern firms need: Clio configuration, Microsoft 365 security hardening, endpoint management at scale, and the cybersecurity controls insurers now expect.
None of that is a criticism of your team. It's the reality of how wide legal technology has become.
Co-managed IT closes those gaps and takes the daily load off your team.
Who Owns What
Co-managed IT works when the responsibility split is explicit. This is the shape most engagements take: your team sets direction, and ALT guides those decisions and carries the execution.
Stays with your team
- Strategic direction. Your team decides where the firm is going.
- Budget and vendor decisions, with our analysis behind them
- Firm-specific knowledge: the systems, the people, the history
- Oversight of the whole engagement. We answer to your IT lead.
ALT takes on
- Day-to-day helpdesk and tickets, so your team is out of the queue
- Device management and policy enforcement in Microsoft Intune
- Identity architecture in Entra ID: MFA, roles, conditional access
- The security layer, plus insurer and client compliance documentation
- Legal software depth: Clio, NetDocuments, Microsoft 365 integrations
- Infrastructure projects and migrations, from design to rollout
What Co-Managed IT Covers
We take on the day-to-day load and the areas where depth and specialization matter most, guided by your team's direction.
Device Management
End-to-end management of distributed secure computing environments, including administration and support for Windows and macOS workstations, peripherals, communications tools, and mobile devices.
Devices are enrolled in Microsoft Intune with encryption, firewall, and approved app policies enforced centrally, so standards don't drift when new machines come in.
Identity and Access
Identity management in Entra ID, including multi-factor authentication, role-based access controls, conditional access policies, and sign-in risk monitoring.
Your team handles onboarding and offboarding workflows. We ensure the underlying identity architecture stays clean and documented.
Security Depth
Your internal team can handle helpdesk tickets and hardware issues. ALT handles the security layer: endpoint detection and response, email security (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), security awareness training, vulnerability management, and backup integrity.
We also provide the compliance documentation your insurer or clients require.
Specialty Software Support
Legal software requires specialized knowledge. Clio, NetDocuments, and their integrations with Microsoft 365 each have their own failure modes.
We support connectors, single sign-on configuration, sync health monitoring, and adoption issues that general IT staff rarely see often enough to master.
Projects and Infrastructure Changes
When your firm needs to move servers, migrate to a new platform, or make a major change to the stack, your internal team stays focused on continuity while ALT drives the project from design to testing to rollout.
How the Engagement Works
Co-managed IT requires clear lines of responsibility. We document who owns what: which functions belong to your internal team, which belong to ALT, and how escalations run in both directions. This isn't informal. It's a defined structure that gets reviewed regularly.
Monthly operating review
ALT reports on security posture, patch status, open incidents, and upcoming changes.
Defined escalation path
Your team knows exactly which tickets come to ALT and what happens next.
Always-on security tooling
ALT-owned monitoring and protection runs continuously in the background.
Strategic input
Technology decisions get ALT's perspective before they're made, not after.
Who This Is For
Co-managed IT is the right model for law firms that:
- Have one or more internal IT staff members who handle day-to-day support
- Need security depth, compliance documentation, or specialized software support that internal staff can't provide
- Want strategic technology guidance without a full fractional CIO engagement
- Are growing and need additional capacity for projects without hiring full-time
No Internal IT Team?
ALT Care Plus is our fully managed program, for firms that want one team responsible for all of it. Co-managed IT is for firms that have internal coverage and want ALT to fill specific gaps, add security depth, and provide strategic oversight without replacing the internal function.
Explore ALT Care Plus →Not sure which model fits your firm?
A clarity call is the right starting point. We'll look at your current setup and recommend the right engagement structure.
Book a clarity callFrequently Asked Questions
No. Co-managed IT exists because your internal team is worth keeping. ALT takes the ticket queue and the daily support load, so your team can focus on direction and the projects that move the firm. They stay in charge of where technology is going.
ALT deploys and maintains the security stack: endpoint protection, monitoring, email security, and backup verification. Your team gets visibility into all of it, and the compliance documentation stays current for insurers and clients.
Yes. Responsibilities are documented, not locked away. Your team keeps the access they need for their functions, and changes to the underlying architecture are made together, with a record of what changed and why.
We define the escalation path together at the start: which categories of issues come to ALT, how they are handed off, and what response looks like. Your staff always know who is handling their problem.
The firm keeps operating. Because responsibilities, systems, and decisions are documented as part of the engagement, ALT can hold continuity while you hire, and the next person inherits a clean, mapped environment instead of tribal knowledge.
Pricing depends on which functions ALT takes on and the size of your environment. Engagements are scoped around the responsibility split, so you're not paying twice for work your internal team already covers.
Have more questions? We’re happy to help.
Talk with an IT consultant for law firms →