Am I alone in my reaction that I want my lawyer to focus on law-ing, not pretty unique IT? What do I do if something happens to you and another lawyer or paralegal has to step in?

No, but my impression from this website is that he's a technology lawyer who enjoys maintaining his own stack, which strikes me as nothing but a plus.

I doubt this blog post is intended for the benefit of his clients.

That said, as someone who is used to Linux and FOSS in my personal life but forced to use a typical corporate tech stack at work, I feel the tech I use at work is a hindrance more than anything and I would be more productive with the kind of stack the author describes.

I also want my lawyer to focus on lawyering, not dealing with Microsoft contracts, trying to keep confidential data out of copilot, dealing with proprietary formats, etc.

At the end of the day, every firm needs some form of IT. Above a certain scale you are hiring IT help to manage it anyway, might as well use free software where you can over MS. It’s not as if managing MS for a large org is particularly easy.

> What do I do if something happens to you and another lawyer or paralegal has to step in?

This is one of the advantages of running free software. The data formats are open, so all of the data should be able to be imported any other system.

Reading the blog post, he isn't doing anything that unusual just using some open source applications that other people can use just as easily.

Businesses don't always want to have their profit sapped by overeager SaaS allegedly allowing said firm to focus on the business. Like all operating decisions, it is a cost/benefit tradeoff.

Like Intuit raising quickbook prices by 20% every few months.

Not alone, but like, I know a guy who runs a tech consulting firm and he is delighted that his lawyer, who is a former lawyer, has technology opinions.

A lot of clients won't care but for certain clients this signals that their lawyer understands their values.

I mean, the first sentence of TFA reads "..a small English law firm, focussing on Internet, telecoms, and tech law". Seems well suited to deploying 'pretty unique IT' with minimal effort.

I assume deliverables are indistinguishable from any other firm, it's not like they are submitting a brief in OpenDocument Format.

I personally would find my lawyer working on projects and blogging about stuff related to his legal domain to be a good thing. This is no different than a constitutional lawyer writing a blog about some constitutional matter going on in current events.

> Am I alone in my reaction

You are.