Dryanta's Journal: Executive Management vs IT. Suggestions to resolve the disconnect?

I work for a Medium Sized law firm as a Sysadmin/Network Engineer and as most people saddled with this type of work, I have an aging undocumented infrastructure that creates more labor than my budget gives me the ability to standardize. I finally caused enough of a scene that I am allowed to write up a proposal to simply compare COO vs ROI, however even in my first draft document I realize I am being too technical for them to understand what I am saying. How have my peers handled this type of disconnect between Execs/Non-IT Management? I am looking for specific case studies in layman's terms that address these overarching types of "Information Technology Governance" problems. It would be doubly helpful if they were specific to Law Firms.