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Management Assistance Program

Law Practice Tips

Cybersecurity

The Risks of Technology Incompetence

By Jim Calloway Some 38 states have adopted the “duty of technology competence” either by modifying a comment to their rule of professional conduct to provide that lawyer competency includes understanding “the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology” or adopting a formal ethics opinion. Many readers will have read dozens of blog posts, tweets...
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Tips to Avoid Some Major Technology Glitches

By Jim Calloway Technology updates and changes, like so many things in life, have positive and negative aspects. One thing that most end-users hate are the changes in our interface that happen with an automatic update. I recall one Adobe Acrobat Professional update where it seemed the developers changed most of the tools I commonly used for no apparent reason. I...
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Safe in the Clouds

By Jim Calloway “Safe in the clouds” sounds peaceful and dreamy, unless of course you have a fear of falling. Lawyers, for better and for worse, are trained to examine everything with an eye toward fear of falling, or more accurately, fear of failing. This starts in law school with the high-pressure Socratic method, high-stakes single exams and...
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Don’t Become the Victim of a Wire Fraud Scheme

By Jim Calloway When I was in law school, a cashier’s check was deemed to be just as good as cash because it was guaranteed by the bank. While that is still technically and legally true today, the question is whether you are holding a valid cashier’s check. Criminals now have the ability to create forged cashier’s checks that...
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Two-Factor Authentication is Critical Today

By Jim Calloway Technology tools for lawyers is a regular topic in this Law Practice Tips column. Any advice columnist knows the readers will often treat their column like a buffet, taking what they like and ignoring some items that may be good for them, but don’t strike their fancy today. Password managers are like that....
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Cloud Computing for Lawyers – 2019

By Jim Calloway “Is it really OK for a lawyer to use the cloud?” is one of the most commonly asked questions I hear from lawyers both today and over the years. The answer is what has been referred to as every lawyer’s favorite answer to any legal question – “It depends.” In my opinion, the expanded answer...
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Technology Competence for the Family Lawyer

By Jim Calloway Some lawyers were concerned when the Model Rules of Professional Conduct were changed to include a comment that competence as a lawyer included an appreciation of “the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” Many states began adopting this language into their own version of the rules with some variance in language. Now...
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A Risky Business: Managing Law Firm Risks

By Jim Calloway Disaster recovery for law firms, cyberattacks, backing up data and protecting digital client security are all things I have discussed in this space during the preceding year. This month I want to cover law firm risk management more generally. Managing and mitigating risk is a key element of much legal work, even...
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Cyber-Attacks: Is It Really Not If You Will Be Attacked, But When?

By Jim Calloway In last month’s column “Backing Up, Like Breaking Up, Is Sometimes Hard to Do,” I discussed the challenges of having good backup procedures. Recently, there were news reports of a Providence, Rhode Island, law firm that was held hostage by ransomware blackmailers for 90 days. Just imagine 90 days without access to any file on the...
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Client Confidentiality, Personal Privacy and Digital Security

By Jim Calloway We have just emerged from a presidential election that led to more members of the general public becoming aware that email accounts can be hacked and the disclosure of stolen emails can be embarrassing and has profound consequences. Technology professionals and those who follow tech news have been aware of these facts...
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