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Numbers Adding Up for Abacus Data Systems

Abacus Data Systems Inc. is seeing explosive growth in both its staffing and revenue this year, as more law firms adopt its private cloud platform that lets firms focus on legal services rather than managing their data systems.

The San Diego business founded in 1983 provides information technology management services tailored to law firms ranging from solo practitioners to larger firms with dozens of attorneys.

The business said it has more than 250,000 clients, many of which have shifted to its cloud platform that provides remote access, improves efficiencies and reduces costs.

Alessandra Lezama, Abacus’ chief executive officer, said because of the increased sales of its service, the company expanded its staff at its headquarters office in the University Towne Center area by 46 people, bringing total employment to 78. Among the jobs that are being created are technical support, provisioning architects, business development specialists, and network engineers, she said.

Sales for the privately-held Abacus came in last year at $12 million, and should finish this year at $18 million, up about 50 percent, Lezama said.

“We’ve re-engineered our model as an organization to support the rapidly changing legal landscape,” Lezama said. “We free up attorneys’ time dealing with legal technology so that they can focus their time to practicing law.”

Cloud Control

A huge driver of new business is Abacus’ shift to providing its software services through a private cloud platform. The new system lets law firms access all their documents and other management systems via a secure portal that can be tapped into remotely from computers and smartphones, she said.

Robert Carichoff, partner in Del Rio & Carichoff PC in Sacramento said his firm has been using Abacus Law for about a year for two main tasks, tracking individual cases and for billing functions.

Regarding the first use, Carichoff said the system is easily accessible to his staff of eight, letting them see the status of a particular case, and adding any new information that is pertinent.

It also streamlined all the previously disparate accounting systems the firm was using into a single source, making it all seamless, Carichoff said.

“I was also impressed with the level of customer service they’ve been giving us. They’re very responsive,” he said.

Abacus was launched by Judd Kessler, an attorney who first obtained degrees in economics and computer science from the University of California, San Diego at age 19, according the firm’s website.

Kessler saw the need for attorneys to have a more reliable way to keep track of their cases than manually writing information down on calendars. He developed a basic system of automatic data retrieval that was well ahead of its time, Lezama said.

Kessler later partnered with Brian Hays who helped to develop a software program to become a “full ERP,” or enterprise resource planning” system, Lezama said.

Keeping track of legal records is a major concern for every law firm, and once involved lots of paper files and a staff of several paralegals to manage. But as more robust computer systems came into use, most of this data and functions have gone digital, she said.

Moving systems, applications and data to a secure cloud-based platform — the latest evolution of information technology — is what Abacus now offers its clients.

“It allows the law firms to take all their applications at the desktop level, and takes it into a private cloud,” Lezama said.

Seeing fairly strong success in the legal arena, Abacus will soon begin offering the private cloud services to other industries including health care, real estate and accounting, Lezama said.

The Security

Asked to provide some idea of the security for this private cloud, Lezama compared a public cloud based service with a multitenant apartment building. The private cloud platform is akin to having a stand-alone house within a gated community, she said.

Abacus also set up two remote data centers, one in San Diego and one in Houston, where the private servers and all the clients’ systems are stored to ensure they have access around the clock, even in the case of some unusual disaster such as a power outage, Lezama said.

Pricing of the company’s systems is based on the number and type of modules a firm uses, but an average is about $47 a month, she said.

Yes, Abacus has competitors that are offering some of the same services, but most of these concentrate on a single function such as case management, Lezama said.

“What sets us apart is that we are offering a full package of services, and there really isn’t a competitor that is doing everything that we are doing,” she said.

Susan Collins, a mediator/paralegal for Bart J. Carey Esq. in Anaheim Hills, said the Abacus Private Cloud provides a higher level of information management services at an affordable price.

“For us, which is a one-attorney firm, if we had to pay to house all this data internally, we probably couldn’t afford it,” Collins said.

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