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Out with the Old, In with the New: 7 Tech Topics for Law Firms

By Steven J. Best posted 03-30-2016 13:14

  

Technology is forever changing. The latest and greatest technology of just five years ago is today’s dinosaur. All businesses, law firms included, must keep up with changes in technology. Today’s lawyers are more mobile, automated, and data driven than ever before. Lawyers must address any technology fears, prepare to budget significant funds into our technology, and embrace these changes or risk becoming that dinosaur in, perhaps, five (or fewer) years. Below are seven legal technology developments to be prepared for.

1. Electronic Discovery – If you’ve not already embraced e-discovery in your litigation practice, you’re running late. But there is never any time like the present to understand e-discovery and how it impacts today's litigants. Frankly, even small, boutique litigation practices will increasingly encounter e-discovery issues. As more litigants use cloud-based storage, social media, and electronic communications, more litigators will need to know how to master discovery of data on these platforms. Issues include understanding data analytics, gathering social media posts and communications, preserving electronic communications, and using technology to help present electronic evidence. E-discovery is here to stay, and if it hasn’t touched your firm yet, it will … any day now.

2. E-Mail and Document Management – The more society relies on electronic communications, the more we need to keep e-mail, documents, PDFs, images, sound files, and the like organized, accurately searchable, and easily accessible. As lawyers increasingly rely on their staff to manually file electronic data in manually created folder, the harder it will be to find precisely what you are looking for. E-mail and document management software is really no longer limited to document storage, but rather encompasses communication management at a matter level. You need to be able to search for your own content quickly, but more importantly, you need to be able to find what others have created, modified, stored, and changed even faster. If you’re still searching for files or yelling across the office for someone to find paper files, it’s simply time to stop that.

3. Security, Encryption, and Regulations – If you haven’t begun to assess your own firm’s infrastructure security (i.e., can an intruder get to your data?), the time is now. More corporate clients such as banks and insurance companies are asking law firms about the internal procedures, protocols, and equipment in place to protect their clients' communications and data. Take e-mail as a perfect example. The attorney's duty to protect the confidentiality of client communication is no longer limited to paper documents, but, according to an article by Sharon D. Nelson and John W. Simek, now extends to electronic communications (e-mail and attachments) as well. Sending a simple e-mail message potentially exposes the contents to criminals and hackers, if not to our own government. And this issue extends further to how you handle, store, and discard litigant (or employee) medical records (HIPAA), client credit card information (PCI), banking and financial data (CFPB), and the like. If security hasn’t been on your mind of late, it’s time to take reasonable steps to protect data entrusted to you.

4. The Cloud – OK. Let’s be perfectly frank. There are no computers in the clouds. The term "cloud” refers, simply, to offsite data storage. Basically, you either rent a software platform (Clio, Rocket Matter, Cosmolex, Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail, Dropbox, etc.), or you rent or buy a server outside your office and pay someone to maintain it. Many state bars have made statements related to the ethical obligations of lawyers and law firms that want to embrace this new technology, but none have affirmatively stated that lawyers and law firms CANNOT store data in the cloud. All have said the use of cloud services is permitted based on some variation of a “reasonable care” standard. However, before investing in cloud technology, check with your state bar for any steps you must take before moving to a cloud-based infrastructure. If your servers are over three years old, NOW is the time to investigate cloud technology. The cloud is simple, fast, and managed by companies who are experts. No longer do you risk the “break-fix” model of technology (i.e., install the server until something breaks and then pay someone a lot of money to hopefully fix it and cross your fingers that something else doesn’t break soon). In addition, cloud providers typically perform data backup, and many provide needed security levels and data encryption. Finally, cloud services also make technology budgets more predictable because they are generally offered on a subscription (monthly-fee) basis.

5. Budgeting and Finance – Every year I say the same thing: Regularly budget for technology, review financial statements, and evaluate productivity. However, this year, more and more of your colleagues and competitors are following this advice. Your competitors are creating business budgets, reviewing data, changing position to be leaner, meaner, and more competitive. They may put you out of business because you cannot keep up with their new lean, mean, efficient law practices. They service clients faster, more accurately, and more cheaply than you can, and they keep analyzing their numbers and adapting nimbly. Nervous? You should be.

6. Mobility – Just five years ago, most law firms were relatively stable work environments. Many lawyers worked within the four walls of their offices from law school to retirement. Today, law schools are pumping out thousands of graduates who many never work in an office. They’re young, hungry, agile, and, most importantly, not tied down. Even in traditional firms, you all probably have had inquiries with people who want to work from home, while traveling, and while on family, maternity, or medical leave. In 2016 and beyond, mobility will be a major concern for all businesses. Now is the time for firms to figure out how to reasonably accommodate employees' requests to work remotely. This issue touches on most of the subjects above, including cloud computing, budgeting, security, and the like. If no one in your office has expressed any interest in mobility yet, trust me, they will. Be prepared or beat them to the punch!

7. Mastering Your Technology – You can invest in the most sophisticated equipment, software, cloud technology, and mobility platforms, but if you and your staff don’t know how to use them, or use only 15 percent of your platform's capabilities, you’ve not made a wise investment. While this recommendation may sound self-serving coming from someone who makes a living providing training and customization services to law firms, it really is deeper than that. Investing in training, customization, and more training is the BEST money you can spend to ensure that everyone in your firm not only uses the technology but also uses it properly and securely. Why invest in e-mail encryption technology only to find out that no one in your firm really understands it and that many bypass it because it is inconvenient or because they don't know how to use it? Why provide sophisticated e-discovery tools to lawyers who don’t know how to use and analyze the results and, in the worst of circumstances, commit malpractice because of it? Initial and regular follow-up training is a no-brainer.

Many of you may not remember a time when your life wasn’t touched by technology. I remind my children (as they roll their eyes) that when I was a kid, I had to get up and change the channel on my old analog TV, get up to answer the wall phone (the one with a receiver tethered to the dial unit), and look at a map to figure out how to get from point A to point B. Those who still do these things are not only practically shunned from modern society, but also can’t keep up with those of us with remote controls, smartphones, and GPS systems on our phones or in our vehicles. The same is true for your law firm. In 2016, like never before, it truly is time to invest in, budget for, and embrace legal technology or prepare to expend enormous amounts of energy keeping up with your competitors. That same energy could be used in many more productive activities. If you needed medical care and had two choices, would you hire the doctor with a 30-year-old X-ray machine, or the doctor with the latest and greatest technology? Think about it.

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