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Has it really been over
10 years since we were all concerned about Y2K and the
number of computer network crashes that the new year would bring? Now
we�ve got 10 years of writing 2000-something as the date under our
belts. 2010 seems like a new decade even though some debate whether
we�ve got another year left in the first decade of the 21st Century.
So many things happened in 2009 in technology that
a �year in review� piece seemed like
a good idea. But looking toward the future is much more interesting
and many of the developments of 2009 seem to be setting the stage
for even more major changes. So, I will cover some new products and
developments that are potential �game-changers� in the way we all
use technology.
BUSINESS KEEPS GOING DIGITAL
Smart businesses have been converting to digital operations
for several years. In some cases, the poor economy has accelerated
that trend rather than impeded it. Computers are pervasive in most
types of businesses. A business without a Web page is now an anachronism.
Improvements in speech and handwriting recognition technology are
becoming more prevalent and will aid the
non-keyboarding crowd.
My message to lawyers is that, with rare exceptions,
the so-called paperless office is no longer optional. If you missed
my article on the paperless office last fall I would encourage you
to read it: �The Paperless Office as a Risk Management Enterprise,� Oklahoma Bar
Journal, Sept. 5, 2009 - Vol. 80; No. 23.
As business operations become more digital, they will
expect to be furnished digital copies of pleadings and attorney bills.
Lawyers do not want to be the final remaining business contact insisting
on sending paper and forcing the client to scan documents into their
digital business records.
Law firms hosting online repositories of client documents
for clients to download will become a standard tool for law firms
within the next few years. (Remember that you heard that here first
when it happens.) I know the idea of posting client documents,
particularly those containing sensitive or confidential information,
online sounds dangerous and irresponsible to many of you reading
this. I applaud your valid concern for protecting your client confidences.
You should be very concerned about this issue.
But sending documents that are not password
protected or encrypted to clients as e-mail attachments represents
a greater potential breach of confidentiality than even the most
basic password-protected online document repository. The Arizona
Bar�s Committee on the Rules of Professional Conduct recently issued Ethics
Opinion 09-04: �Confidentiality;
Maintaining Client Files; Electronic Storage; Internet� discussing
online client document repositories.
To avoid misunderstanding, I am not saying that you
have to do this or that many law firms are doing it now. My point
is that at some point you need to be ready to respond when a business
client informs you that they are tired of scanning all of the paper
you send them and requests you start sending them digitally. There
are many possible responses, but �No� will not be a smart one.
SOCIAL NETWORKING HITS THE MAINSTREAM
It would be impossible to do a review of 2009 without
mentioning social networking. For most lawyers, this was the year
they first heard of Twitter and first heard the idea that something
like Facebook might be used for business. The use of online social
media, which had been growing steadily, literally exploded in use
and popularity. You no longer had to be a
techno-geek to admit you had
a Facebook page or posted to Twitter. In the short term, this generated
many discussions about how lawyers could use social media to their
advantage in marketing and communication with clients. This, of course,
caused me to write �Can
a Lawyer Really Use Twitter to Market a Law Practice?� Oklahoma Bar Journal,
Oct. 10, 2009 - Vol. 80; No. 26.
The long-term implications of people posting all sorts
of personal information online brings a significant impact for our
society and the legal profession. (In fact, some of us have noted
a �generation gap� between those who are concerned about this and
younger people who cannot figure out why their elders are worried
about personal information being online and freely available). People
are hearing from all sorts of long-lost college and high school friends
via social networks, which could be a good thing
or bad thing depending on
the friends.
Already family lawyers are reviewing online postings
where child custody is an issue. Breaking up may still be hard to
do, but announcing it by changing one�s status on Facebook gets the
word out to everyone quickly, perhaps more quickly than one intended.
See this
recent blog post on Social Networking and
Cross Examination from a North
Carolina lawyer. The increasing use of social networking sites has
resulted in �unfriend� being chosen as Oxford Dictionary�s 2009 Word
of the Year. (Unfriend � verb � To remove someone as a �friend� on
a social networking site such as Facebook).
As I have noted in this space before, the most valuable
aspect of Twitter to me personally is the fact that my colleagues
collectively read many more articles than I possibly could and post
the links to the best ones for me to read.
And, of course, let�s not forget our very own private
social network, Oklahoma Bar Circle. It should see greater participation
this coming year.
MOBILE PHONES KEEP GETTING SMARTER
Remember when you could never lose your phone as it
was connected to a wall? Now many are predicting the eventual death
of the land line, for homes at least.
Every year or so we change the label for the phones
we carry. First they were cell phones. When they became digital,
they were called mobile phones. Soon, they synchronized with our
computers and were called smart phones. 2009 saw the rise of a new
label, the �app phone.� Thinking of the phone as a small portable
computer that is enhanced by the installation of many additional
software packages is a different way of viewing phones for all of
us.
Apple�s iPhone has been a trailblazer in the app phone
market with many lawyers switching to the iPhone. The iPhone is great.
One of the real drivers for its sales has been the hundreds of thousands
of downloadable apps. Apple recently announced more than 3 billion
apps have been downloaded from its App Store.
But the iPhone is far from
the only app phone. Several phones based on the Android operating
system have been released, including the popular Droid phone from
Verizon and the just-released Nexus One from Google. Since many are
complaining about the iPhone being handcuffed to AT&T, the Nexus
One will be available in a version that can be used with more than
one carrier, if you are willing to pay a premium purchase price.
Some colleagues of mine, Sharon
Nelson and John Simek,
made a bit of a splash this year with their recent assertion that
iPhones are too insecure for law firm use. See �Parting
the Curtains on the iPhone�s Security Problems,� Law Practice magazine,
online. This article prompted one law firm
to ban iPhones, according to an article in the ABA Journal.
While I cannot argue with Sharon and John�s expertise,
I also cannot jump on the �Ban the iPhone� bandwagon either. Nor
would committed iPhone users listen to me if I did! Be aware that
these security flaws involve someone with technical expertise finding
or stealing your iPhone with the goal of stealing the information
it contains. So, one needs to make certain that one is knowledgeable
on the emergency feature that can remotely erase the data on an iPhone
if it is lost or stolen and the �Find My iPhone� feature that enables
users to view the location of their lost or stolen iPhone on a map.
Of course, a professional criminal knows to pop out the SIM card
to defeat these measures, so take action quickly if it is lost or
stolen.
And surely every lawyer with an iPhone has set a PIN,
so that anyone who finds it cannot have instant access to all the
information on it.
I cannot argue with the assertion that a properly-configured
Blackberry is generally more secure than an iPhone if lost or stolen.
So try hard not to lose yours if you have one.
CLOUD COMPUTING FOR LAWYERS
Cloud computing for the legal profession was another
hot topic with some legal professionals turning to online case management
software to run their practices. Two contenders in this new market,
Clio and RocketMatter, are battling for market share while legal
ethics authorities and technologists are still debating this approach.
Generally speaking, cloud computing refers to storing
both data and the applications used to work with the data offsite
on someone else�s server. Users typically use a Web browser to do
their daily work. To learn more about cloud computing, read the two
pieces linked below.
Forbes magazine noted this trend
in its article, �Cloud
Computing Grows Up.�
Putting all confidential client data in the cloud
is an even more startling idea to lawyers than a simple password-protected
document repository. On our Digital Edge podcast,
Sharon Nelson and I interviewed two experts, with Erik Mazzone playing
the role of the cloud champion and Ben Schorr taking the role of
the cloud curmudgeon. Read
my blog post on the topic with a link to the
podcast.
TABLETS AND E-BOOK READERS
This may not be an obvious game-changer to many, but
tablet computers and e-book readers represent one of the technology
trends with far-reaching implications. One of the information recording
tools long associated with our profession is the legal pad. Despite
the increasing use of computers in law offices, the humble legal
pad is still used daily in many law practices.
The idea of carrying something about the size of a
legal pad but a bit thicker, with full computing capability and Internet
access may be appealing to many lawyers. You can write on the tablets
with a stylus just like you would on a legal pad and save your hand-written
notes.
I know many lawyers love to read. When I mention e-book
readers, I prepare myself for the inevitable response that reading
something on screen would not be as pleasurable and satisfying as
holding a �real� book. But in the same way that iPods and other mp3
players allow you to carry your entire music collection with you,
the e-book readers allow you to carry dozens of books as well as
current magazines and newspapers.
REMOTE ACCESS/TELECOMMUTING
Remote access to the office network from the road
or the homestead is becoming a staple of modern business environment.
This is a powerful concept and since most lawyers and law firm staff
have home computers, the possibility exists to grant many remote
access privileges. But many offices have not yet considered all of
the implications of these tools.
Suppose your trusted legal assistant calls in from
home in the morning and tells you she is deathly ill. You both recognize
that this is a serious problem as you were up late revising the brief
that is due today. Your technical skills do not include formatting
a federal brief correctly within a tight time frame and you have
a fully-scheduled day as well.
The assistant performs above and beyond the call of
duty, spending the day at home hacking, coughing and revising the
brief. You return to the office at 3:15 p.m. to print and review
the perfect brief, make copies and send the runner off to file it
with the court clerk.
You are pleased and tell the legal assistant it would
be unfair to charge her with a day of sick leave given the fact that
she worked all day. All is well. Then next week your partner walks
in with a perplexed look. His secretary has just informed him that
she is home with a sick child, but will be working from home under
the firm�s new policy for telecommuting and that he can ask you about
that.
MISCELLANEOUS
2009 was obviously not a good year for many major
law firms. Law
Shucks reported that 12,196 people were laid off by
major firms in 2009, of which 4,633 were lawyers and 7,563 were staff,
while noting that due to underreporting the true number was likely
even higher.
Windows 7 was launched, with the unofficial marketing
slogan of �Hey, it�s gotta be better than Vista.� It looks like lawyers
who have stuck with Windows XP may not be moving as long as Microsoft
continues to support XP, but many Vista users are upgrading now.
PC vs. Mac wars moved into heavy-duty prime time television
commercial space. The Mac vs. PC TV commercials have become iconic.
Let me conclude this month with a list of podcasts
and articles that are generally related to this month�s topic.
Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast Looking
Back: Legal Technology in 2009. I have to agree with Tom
Mighell that 2009 seemed to be the year that judges recognized that
electronic discovery was
just too expensive and lawyers had to cooperate more on
these issues, whether they wanted to or not.
My favorite personal technology columnist is New York Times columnist
David Pogue. This year I strongly recommend you read his 5th Annual
Pogie Awards for the Year�s Best
Tech Ideas. We both see
2009 as a
year of big ideas.
One of my favorite end-of-the-year resources is the
Lifehacker
Best of 2009. Lifehacker is one of the most valuable resources
that is online. The large number of posts each day makes it difficult
for busy people to read all of Lifehacker during the year, making
their end-of-the year review required reading to catch up.
As new things emerge, they replace old things. At
the end of the year, I ran across a surprising number of articles
about products that were deemed on the way out. Here are links to
a few of them:
About the Author
Jim Calloway is the director of the OBA Management
Assistance Program. He can be reached at jimc(at)okbar.org.
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