Gabrielle Orum Hernández, Legaltech News
With added pressures on attorneys to
stay connected and mobile, lawyers look increasingly to technology to keep data
accessible (but secure).
Credit: hxdbzxy/Shutterstock.com
In a changing digital landscape, more law firms and
legal departments are looking to technology to address pains in the workflow,
and among these changes underway is a push for a more mobile, cloud-based
workspace.
The American
Bar Association’s 2015 Tech Report found that 90 percent of lawyers are connected to work at
all times via a smartphone, with 79 percent regularly using a laptop for mobile
computer access and 49 percent using a tablet for the same. Ninety-three percent
of those surveyed reported using email as their primary activity for all their
mobile use.
Legaltech News’ more
recent technology survey, released in late October, found that the most popular
reasoning for mobile device flexibility for attorneys were increased
productivity, at 38 percent, and increased flexibility, at 27 percent.
Additionally, cloud
computing across law firms jumped up to 75 percent adoption this year,
according to Legaltech News’ survey, up from only 51 percent who said the same
in 2015.
Human resources
technology stands at the top of firms’ cloud computing investments, with 65
percent of those using cloud-based technology accessing tools like time keeping
and project management through cloud-hosted systems. Rodney Harrison,
shareholder at Ogletree Deakins, told Legaltech News that he finds himself
accessing these types of features through his tablet device rather than his
designated work computer.
For more extended tasks,
Harrison said he can easily bring his laptop along and log into the firm’
mobile link through SonicWall when working remotely.
“It’s pretty much like
I’m in my office,” Harrison said. “It’s no different than if I have my laptop
plugged into my docking station.”
Remote access software
like Citrix and SonicWall allows users to access their desktop environments
securely from a mobile device. While these mobile office providers have taken
steps in recent yearsto make
their desktop access services available on tablet and mobile devices, most lawyers
still prefer to access work product on their laptop or desktop computers
(though hybrid devices like Microsoft’s Surface Pro is starting to show some
growth in this area).
Ryan McEnroe, director
of IT operations at Reed Smith, told Legaltech News that in monitoring the
firm’s Citrix environment, he finds that some attorneys do tap into their
desktop environments on the small screen as needed.
“We do have some users
and lawyers who will, as crazy as it may seem, will use the Citrix [software]
on a device as small as an iPhone,” McEnroe said.
For the most part,
however, McEnroe noted that Reed Smith’s attorneys prefer a larger interface
for mobile work. “Those [attorneys] are few and far between,” he acknowledged.
“Those are more to do what I would say are non-complex things,” McEnroe said,
tasks like reviewing email attachments or quickly scanning documents.
While the “lawyer on the
go” is starting to become a norm in the legal industry, the ideal of a “virtual
law practice,” a purely mobile-based legal services operation, is still largely
a pipe dream in the current landscape. The ABA’s 2015 Tech Report found that
only 5 percent of attorneys would describe their work as a “virtual law
practice,” as defined primarily through a lack of traditional office space or
client contact.
But while attorneys may
be hesitant to self-define their practice as fully “virtual,” many attorneys
seem to be adopting elements of a virtual practice. Telecommuting from home has
a fact of life in the legal industry, with most attorneys telecommuting from
home, hotel rooms, or other firm offices at some point during the year.
Some attorneys are even
adopting client-facing work through mobile means. ABA’s survey also found that
online client interaction tools around document sharing and messaging both rose
across 2015, with document sharing growing 5 percent from 2014 to 2015, and
online attorney-client communication grew 4 percent in the same period.
Notably, telecommuting
from home slid in 2015, down to 80 percent of attorneys from 88 percent, a
trend that has correlated somewhat with the increase in threats to
cybersecurity and law firms’ respective crackdowns on data security. Security
experts have
begun to urge attorneys to consider how often and how liberally they want to
use alternative digital communications means, indicating that the trend towards
phone or in-person meetings could force attorneys to continue to rethink some
of their mobile means of communication.
As these changes take
shape over the next year, attorneys will likely continue to push for mobility,
and their technology will likely grow with them.
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