{"id":4550,"date":"2026-10-12T03:30:30","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T08:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/boston-ma-1020\/?p=4550"},"modified":"2026-10-05T03:38:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T08:38:24","slug":"covering-it-at-a-firm-too-small-to-hire-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/boston-ma-1020\/blog\/covering-it-at-a-firm-too-small-to-hire-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Covering IT at a Firm Too Small to Hire for It"},"content":{"rendered":"

No managing partner I have met sat down one year and decided against hiring an IT person. The decision never came up, because the job was never a full time job. Somewhere between eight and forty people, a firm needs technology handled competently and continuously, and needs roughly a fifth of a person to do it. You cannot hire a fifth of a person.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the work<\/span> gets absorbed<\/span><\/a>.<\/span> Usually by a partner, occasionally by an office manager, always by somebody whose actual role is something else.<\/span><\/p>\n

The math that never quite works<\/b><\/h2>\n

A capable<\/span> internal technologist<\/span><\/a> is a real salary, plus benefits, plus the assumption that they never take a vacation and never leave.<\/span> For a firm of fourteen people billing client work, that is difficult to justify to the other partners, and every outside dollar is a partner dollar.<\/span><\/p>\n

The alternative most firms land on is a technician they call<\/span> when something breaks<\/span><\/a>. That works until the thing that breaks is urgent, or happens at seven in the evening in the middle of filing season, or requires somebody who already knows how the practice is set up.<\/span><\/p>\n

The gap is not skill. The gap is coverage.<\/span><\/p>\n

What coverage has to include for a firm this size<\/b><\/h2>\n

When a firm asks me what they should expect, I give the same list regardless of whether they end up working with me.<\/span><\/p>\n