move to the cloud very quickly," he said. It can be a more complicated, time consuming process for larger firms, which have huge investments in technology infrastructure. "It's a hard internal sell to just throw that all away," he said. "Small firms will be big benefactors in the long run." According to the 2013 and 2014 American Bar Association Legal Technology Survey Reports, the percentage of lawyers who say they use cloud-based software and services percent in 2013. It stayed level in 2014, though solos and small firms continued to lead the way. According to the 2013 report, 40 percent of solo lawyers used the cloud, compared to 29 percent in 2012 and 23 percent in 2011. Of lawyers at firms of two to nine members, 36 percent use the cloud, followed by 30 percent at firms of 10 to 49 attorneys and 19 percent at firms of 100 or more attorneys. question security and confidentiality when exploring a move to the cloud. Many law firms are still concerned that using the cloud exposes their clients' confidential records to cyberspace, and it's safer to keep it all in house under lock and key. But Safran assures clients the cloud is probably a more secure location for confidential records than the law office. "I understand the fact that law firms are concerned about security, but sometimes I think they lose perspective over this," Safran said. "They have to ask themselves, `Who's going to do security better? Them or Microsoft?' You're never going to be able to match the security capabilities that the large global cloud providers can." According to Barry Miller of Primerus member firm Fowler Bell in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky, his firm moved to the cloud before it was popular. Miller, a past chair and current member of the firm's technology committee, said, "One of the best decisions our technology committee ever made was, before the term cloud was ever used, to move to NetDocuments. document management system seven years ago to replace its hardware-based document management system, which needed three servers to operate, Miller said. The firm faced the decision of whether to replace some servers, and add more for a total of five. "I thought, `I don't need a server for every five attorneys.' That's absurd," Miller said. That forward-thinking choice has saved the firm a lot of money. "At the time (of the switch), based on the price we were paying, it would have taken 10 years to get to the price the physical solution was going to cost us," Miller said. A few years later, members of the firm saw Microsoft commercials about the cloud and asked Miller if it was something the firm should consider. "I said, `You have been in the cloud for two years, you just didn't know it.'" Miller's firm also made a progressive choice in December 2011 to give each of called "perhaps the only universally- welcomed tech committee decision in firm history." Four years later, he still considers the iPads a good investment. Attorneys use them primarily to stay on top of email when they're out of the office, some light word processing, editing briefs and taking documents into court. Miller's firm in 2014, and many other smaller firms like his, was becoming better equipped to handle electronic discovery, or e-discovery. (Discovery is the initial phase of litigation when parties are required to provide each other relevant information and records, as well as all other evidence relating to the case. E-discovery deals with the exchange of information in electronic format such as emails, instant messaging chats, documents, accounting databases, websites, etc.) Miller's firm has not invested in one e-discovery platform because they have found the needs of clients differ in each case. Again, they have gone to the cloud, using Nextpoint, an on-demand evidence management, for some cases. It's another example of how the firm can be nimble, saving money by catering the technology to exactly what the client needs, without investing in expensive hardware. According to Bradley Nahrstadt of Primerus member firm Lipe Lyons Murphy Nahrstadt & Pontikis, Ltd., in Chicago, Illinois, recent trends in the area of e-discovery also present advantages to small to mid-sized firms and their clients. A hot button topic in e-discovery now is the idea of proportionality, he said. With the high volume of information that's electronic today, e-discovery can quickly get out of hand with requests that go far beyond what's proportional to the amount in dispute in a case. Also a hot topic is the idea of cooperation, whereby concerned that using the cloud exposes their clients' confidential records to cyberspace, and it's safer to keep it all in house under lock and key. But Safran assures clients the cloud is probably a more secure location for confidential records than the law office. |