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Why Word is slow: document and practice software at law firms
A lawyer clicks a document, and Word takes a minute to open
Is it the laptop, the network, the server or the vendor’s cloud? Most firms guess. The honest first step is to measure.
We support Worldox and Unity Accounting (formerly esiLaw).
What you can count on
- Under 2 hrsto restore a failed server from local backups
- 24/7a person answers (604) 813-7881
- $55 to $110per PC per month for law firms
What happens
Illustrative, not a client story. This is a made-up sketch of a common complaint. It is not about a Benson Hunt client.
A lawyer clicks a document in the document management system. Word starts to open. A minute goes by. Sometimes more. It is worse in the afternoon, and worse for some people than for others.
Someone suggests new laptops. Someone else blames the software vendor. A few people start saving copies to their desktop “just to get the work done”, which quietly makes search, versions and backups worse.
Everyone is partly right, which is why guessing rarely helps. A document that opens slowly has usually passed through four or five places on its way to the screen.
Your computer
What loads when Word opens.
Your network
Busy Wi-Fi, long routes, shared links.
Your server and storage
Disks, RAID type and what else shares the server.
The vendor’s cloud
Outages happen. We can show whether it is theirs.
Why it happens
In plain words, and with nobody to blame.
Word loads more than Word
Add-ins for templates, the document system and other tools start with it, every time. A few slow ones can add up.
Protection and sync look at every file
Scanning and sync can slow things down, especially in the folders a document system uses for local copies. These settings can often be tuned with care, without leaving a gap.
The path to the files is long
Busy Wi-Fi, traffic that goes through the firewall when it could stay on the switch, slow disks, a link shared with backups, or a VPN that sends everything the long way round.
What fixes it
Some causes are ours to fix and some are not. Cloud services usually publish a status page, and when the slowness is on their side, nobody at your firm or ours can fix it. What we can do is show you where the wait is, so you are not guessing.
- Measure first. We start by timing the same document from a laptop, from another room and from the server, so the slow part shows itself before anyone spends money.
- Your software on its own server. On-site legal software, for example PCLaw, Worldox or Amicus Attorney, belongs on a dedicated app server, never on the domain controller. We build at least 2 virtual servers on Hyper-V: one for sign-in and one for your apps. We check with your vendor first. Hyper-V for law firms
- Storage that fits the work. RAID 10 for virtual machine storage is standard in our builds, set up with standard ITIL change and configuration practice. RAID is not a backup. How RAID 10 works
- Layer 3 PoE switches and VLANs. We recommend them, and we can set them up. Server traffic stays on a fast path at switch speed instead of going through the firewall, and phones, printers and guests sit in their own lanes.
- Patching, and Huntress Managed EDR, tuned with care. We recommend a weekly patching schedule. Huntress Managed EDR runs on every computer we manage, and we look at how protection treats your document folders, with the software vendor’s guidance, so it stays on without getting in the way.
- 3-2-1 backups planned around your working day. Three copies, two kinds of storage, one offsite, so backups do not compete with lawyers for the network.
- Licensing in plain words. We license Windows Server Standard or Datacenter to cover the virtual servers. People and devices that connect also need Windows Server access licenses (CALs), which are separate from the server license, and remote desktop sessions need their own RDS CALs. We confirm exactly what you need for your setup.
Still on Worldox? Plan ahead. We support Worldox. It has been owned by NetDocuments since 2022, and its on-premises version is reported to reach end of life on December 31, 2026 (LexWorkplace, updated August 2026). Confirm the date with NetDocuments. Either way, it is a good moment to plan where your documents go next, and we can help with the IT side of the move.
We also support Unity Accounting (formerly esiLaw) by Dye & Durham. Benson Hunt is independent IT support, not the software vendor. We coordinate with your vendors before anything changes, and we take and test a backup first.
Questions we help you answer
Ask us which of these matter most for your firm.
- Which add-ins load when Word starts, and does every one of them need to?
- When a day is slow, is it your side or the cloud service’s side, and where would you look first?
- What would you do for a morning if the document system were unavailable?
- If a product you use is moving, being retired or changing, what happens to your matter history, document versions and email filing links? Ask the vendor for dates in writing. We can help you plan the move.
- Where does the vendor keep your data, and can you export it in a usable form?
Where this meets the rules: the Law Society of Alberta’s software considerations list questions to ask a vendor, including individual logins, multi-factor sign-in, independent testing, data stored in Canada, and export and restore. The Law Society of BC’s cloud checklist suggests informed client consent, and notice if data is stored outside Canada. This is IT guidance, not legal advice.
Why it matters, in plain words
The tech behind this page, and why it’s there. See all the plain guides.
RAID 10
Why two healthy drives still aren’t a backup
RAID 10 keeps the server running when a drive dies. It also copies a mistake or ransomware to every drive instantly.
Hyper-V
Why one dead server shouldn’t stop the firm
On Hyper-V, the server is a set of files that can come back on other hardware. Restores from local storage have taken less than 2 hours.
Immutable backups
Why ransomware goes after the firm’s backups first
Without backups, the firm has to pay or rebuild. Our copies are locked for 30 days, and no one, not even us, can delete them early.
Slow document software questions we hear
Will new laptops fix a slow Word?
Sometimes, but often not. Slow starts are more often caused by add-ins, security and sync software, or the path to the files than by the laptop itself. We check before anyone buys hardware.
Can you fix a slow cloud document system?
Not when the slowness is on the vendor’s side, and it is better to say so plainly. We can show whether the wait is in your computers, your network or their service, and help you plan for the day it is down.
Which legal software do you work with?
We support Worldox and Unity Accounting (formerly esiLaw) by Dye & Durham, and we work alongside Clio, PCLaw, LEAP, Amicus Attorney, NetDocuments, iManage and others. We look after the IT around them: servers, network, computers, backups and security, and we work with your vendor. Tell us what you run and we will tell you honestly where we can help.
Can you help us move to a different document system?
Ask us. Moves like that are mostly about metadata, versions and email links, and the vendor plays a big part. We can talk through the IT side with you and your vendor.