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In the September/October 2011issue of The Pennsylvania Lawyer, published by the Pennsylvania Bar Association, practicing attorney and technology consultant, Shannon Brown, provides a very thoughtful and informative primer on the “why’s and wherefores” of cloud computing. His article offers some important background for attorneys attempting to understand the “alphabet soup” of current cloud computing terminology.
He also outlines why it is important for attorneys to understand some of the risks associated with cloud computing, and how to mitigate those risks to insure compliance with various judicial opinions on the topic. Specifically, he cites Ethics Informal Opinion (2010-060, 1/10/2011) of the PA Bar Association’s Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, which states that attorneys may ethically allow client confidential material to be stored ‘in the cloud’ “… provided the attorney makes reasonable efforts to assure that the material is confidential.”
As Brown states, any attorney contemplating a cloud-based storage solution will need to understand what constitutes “reasonable efforts” regarding the confidentiality of data stored. To help with this determination, the author suggests three areas for attorneys to probe carefully before committing to the cloud. They are:
- Data encryption practices adopted by the vendor
- Awareness of the physical storage location of the data itself
- Procedures for disaster recovery of data made available by the vendor
NetDocuments appears to do rather well in all three of these crucial categories.
All documents sent to and from NetDocuments use secure SSL protocols with 128 bit encryption keys, and all documents stored on the NetDocuments servers are fully encrypted. Multiple additional technical and procedural safeguards are in place to insure that your documents are available only to you and to those with whom you choose to share them.
NetDocuments servers are located exclusively in the U.S. for U.S. firms, as well as two redundant datacenters in the UK. All data becomes replicated between the two secure hosting centers, insuring continuity of access. In the event of a disaster at one site, access to the replicated site is instantaneous and transparent to the user. You can read the details for yourself in the NetDocuments Technical Overview.
So, all of you Pennsylvania lawyers out there, rest easy knowing that NetDocuments fully complies with the standards as currently defined by your Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, and as further explicated by a practicing attorney who is also a knowledgeable technology professional.
The cloud can indeed be a dangerous place. Perform your due diligence accordingly.
Post written by Jack Schaller of Eastern Legal Systems (ELS). ELS is one of NetDocuments valued Business Services Partners. Jack is a partner and Director of Client Development and operates out of the firm’s Blue Bell, PA office.
Eastern Legal Systems LLC is a regional technology consulting firm specializing in legal billing and accounting, practice management, document management, and network optimization for small to mid-size law firms. Spanning the “Metroliner Corridor” of the Eastern United States seaboard, Eastern Legal Systems serves clients in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. from offices in those four locations.
Our mission is to add value to each project we initiate for our law firm clients, through our combination of extensive software and training experience, our deep knowledge of the products we support, and our solid legal industry background.
October 5th, 2011
Tags: Attorney, Cloud Computing, Content Management, document management, law firm, Legal Administrators, Legal SaaS, legal technology, LegalTech, Security, Technology|
Category: business continuity, Cloud Computing, Compliance, document management, Ethics, legal, Legal Ethics, legal technology, SaaS, Technology
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Remember recess in elementary? That’s right, a hundred kids running at full speed in different directions, headed for unknown destinations, totally oblivious of who would be there and why? Exciting, yes. Fun, yes. Total mayhem, you bet. The Cloud Computing industry is growing at a break-neck pace, recess is out, and it’s time to make some sense of the chaos.
Collaboration is a broad and well trodden topic; in fact, it was Salesforce.com’s theme at their event of the year, titled “Collabor8”. But just because Salesforce.com can throw around phrases like “collaborative software”, or taking a “collaborative approach” in their business vernacular, it doesn’t make it any easier to grasp in a real sense, nor to implement in a real-life, competitive and fast-paced environment, especially if your business has nothing to do with Salesforce.com.
Note: If you think collaboration is a cliché topic, then you don’t really understand how far reaching of a “principle” it really is. It is the secret sauce to the budding industries and technologies of social media, software/technology design, the user experience, and channel management, so quit you’re complaining and put your “cliché” card away.
I’m not talking about collaboration specific to the NetDocuments world, although it’s worth mentioning that client portals, data rooms, extranets, threaded discussions, notifications, alerts, and workspaces are all collaborative tools available within NetDocuments’ functionality (shameless plug), but I’m talking about Collaboration from a bird’s eye perspective in the developing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry. Business solutions aggregators are beginning to sprout and take shape; timely since CNET has just validated that one of the “Top 12 Cloud Gifts of 2010” is the broad acceptance of Cloud Computing. What immediately follows acceptance? Chaos. What should follow chaos? Collaboration.
Here are a few industry-specific collaborators – Let’s see what they have to offer…
The LCCA is specific to the legal industry and has comprised some innovative and thought leading organizations who among others, purport to be leading the “cloud computing” pack. Member organizations surround practice management and technology consulting for the legal professional, including: Clio, DirectLaw, RocketMatter, and TotalAttorneys. If the aim is to define standards and best practices, and form policies and guidelines, the list is not yet complete but I’m thrilled to see it beginning to take shape.
The LCCA’s charter
- Provide a unified and consistent voice for vendors in the legal cloud computing market;
- Collaborate and cooperate with Bar Associations and other policy-forming bodies in efforts to form policies and guidelines relating to the use of cloud computing in law practices;
- Define standards and best practices;
- Provide educational resources to attorneys and the broader legal community on cloud computing and the technical, legal and ethical issues relating to cloud computing
Virtual Solutions Consortium (VSC) aggregates financial services solutions and resources into one central location, separated by two main categories: Virtual Staff and Resources. Virtual Staff includes links to operational managers, compliance consultants, web developers, and accountants. The resources tab includes C-level strategists, coaching, client portals, and document management. VSC seeks to answer the questions: What can I outsource? What should I outsource? Who can I outsource it to? With a concise set of value-ads such as:
- Increased efficiency and productivity
- Expert advice and execution
- Greater flexibility
- Significant cost savings
Virtual Solutions and the LCCA are two innovative organizations seeking to bring collaboration and unity to the chaos and clutter of the cloud computing industry. I applaud their initiative, but there is still a lot of work to be done to collect and unite the key stakeholders across vertical markets and the industry as a whole. To learn more about new collaboration, or to contribute to the discussion, send a tweet to @NetDocuments or @MarriottMurdock.
Post written by Marriott Murdock of the NetDocuments marketing team and head of channel development
December 21st, 2010
Tags: Attorney, CNET, collaboration, Content Management, document storage, GreenIT, law firm, legal technology, MyVirtualCOO, Salesforce, Salesforce.com, Will.I.Am|
Category: business continuity, Cloud Computing, collaboration, Compliance, Cost Savings, document management, Document Management for Salesforce, Financial Services Technology, legal, legal technology, Registered Investment Advisors, SaaS, Salesforce.com, Technology
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Do your friends call you a “techno nomad” or a “21st century minimalist”? If all you need to run your legal practice is any web enabled device, than you’ve probably been labeled by one of these terms.
You see, in the 90s, the prevailing trend was bigger is better: bigger cars, bigger hamburgers, bigger houses and bigger technology. But with a downturn in the economy, more fuel conscience consumers and the rise cloud computing, consumers and businesses alike are learning how to do more with less, including their technology needs.
20 years ago, ok, probably only 5 years ago, if I were to have gotten with a group of 5 lawyers to start a firm, I would have bought servers, PCs, network stuff, probably some IT people to manage it all and a large investment in some large software package. Now compare that with what new firm Lumpkins Spiers PLC did when two attorneys broke off from a large practice to start their own earlier this year. All they needed was a scanner, laptops and an internet connection.
[Read the entire case study on how Lumpkins Spiers PLC uses web based technology to manage and run their law practice]
John Lumpkins, one of the partners, had been overseeing and managing technology for over twenty years when he joined with Sarah Spiers to form a new firm, and he knew that there was a more efficient way to run a practice. He envisioned a “legal practice 2.0” or a “law firm in the cloud.”
“Cloud Computing is a way to allow us to focus on what we do best instead of having to invest in or maintain a whole server system ourselves,” John said after deciding to employ an integrated solution of NetDocuments and AdvologixPM.
Though they are still a relatively new firm, John and Sarah have enjoyed the simplicity and ease of implementation that moving to the cloud has provided them.
To learn more about how Lumpkins Spiers has created a cloud based legal practice, read the entire case study here.
To continue the legal SaaS discussion, send a tweet to @NetDocuments and we’ll be sure to keep the conversation going.
August 19th, 2010
Tags: Advologix, Attorney, integration, law firm, legal technology, practice management|
Category: Advologix, business continuity, collaboration, document, document management, legal technology, paperless, SaaS, Technology
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The NetDocuments legal team is getting excited about their trip to Boston for the Association of Legal Administrators’ (ALA) Annual Conference & Exposition from May 3-6 2010. We will be represented by Keith Schneider, Matt Duncan and Kirsten Walker who will be hanging out at booth #306 talking legal technology and SaaS, as well as giving out a free iPad. Stop by the booth for more details.
ALA has done a fantastic job this year preparing for the event and providing ways for those that can’t make it to participate. They have already created some informative videos about the show and have an interactive Twitter account at @ALABuzz. Furthermore, the Twitter #hashtag for the show is #ALAConf and you can find everyone that will be tweeting from the show at the ALA Conference Twitter List.
ALA has also lined up great speakers and presenters for the educational sessions with a lineup that features various industry leaders, and even includes hall of fame baseball players.
This is the second straight year that NetDocuments will be at the ALA Conference and this year we will be the only SaaS content management provider and only document management service that is used by both small and large firms at the show so we’ll do our best to represent the SaaS and cloud computing market.
April 28th, 2010
Tags: ALA, Boston, iPad, law firm, legal, Technology|
Category: Apple, Cloud Computing, legal, legal technology, SaaS
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OREM, UTAH – March 9, 2010 – NetDocuments, the leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management service provider announced today that the national law firm Jackson Lewis LLP has selected NetDocuments as its firm-wide document management service. Jackson Lewis is a leading firm dedicated to exclusively representing management in workplace law across the nation.
NetDocuments will be deployed across the firm’s 600 attorneys in 45 offices nationwide. NetDocuments’ professional services team with the assistance of EncoreTech, a certified NetDocuments Training Partner, have commenced migrating all the firm’s documents from each of the 45 offices into a single, global NetDocuments repository accessible to all employees anytime, anywhere. NetDocuments offers the firm a unique advantage to deploy incrementally and capture a faster return on investment and time-to-value effect as compared to traditional document management systems, which are so typically burdened by the hardware, software and setup issues resulting in months to years of exhaustive deployment.
“We selected NetDocuments as the firm’s document management and collaboration service due to the strength and knowledge of the company’s management and engineering teams who have been leaders in document management technology for years,” said John P. Donnelly, COO, Jackson Lewis LLP. “The simplicity and cost-savings of the NetDocuments application,” continued Donnelly, “for deployment, administration and ability to quickly scale as the firm may expand and adapt to an ever changing economy made it a clear decision as compared to other alternatives.”
The NetDocuments SaaS model services law firms of all sizes and after eleven years in operation, has many national and international law firm customers providing their attorneys with a central point of collaboration, storage and management of their documents from the office, home or on the road. NetDocuments provides rich DMS services (such as version control, audit trails, ethical wall security, two-factor authentication, profiling, concurrency enforcement, searching, redlining and permissions enforcement), in the same way for externally shared and secured documents as with internal documents. Attorneys have a single user interface for all offices and for all users—for their internal DMS and for any Extranet and case management services—all with built-in disaster recovery services and 24x7x365 availability.
Ken Duncan, CEO at NetDocuments, stated, “We have been aware of Jackson Lewis’ unique technology needs for years. It gives us much satisfaction to work with Jackson Lewis and provide them a central location for their documents across all their offices.”
About NetDocuments
NetDocuments is leading the industry trend for On Demand document management and collaboration services. Organizations of all sizes can save tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars by eliminating the hardware, system and client software, and ongoing administration of a legacy client-server technology model. With the NetDocuments patented service simply “turned on,” business professionals can immediately begin storing, managing and sharing documents throughout the world and on any Internet-connected service device. Founded in 1998 and based in Orem, Utah, NetDocuments has 90,000 users in over 144 countries. For more information about the company and management, go to www.netdocuments.com.
About Jackson Lewis LLP
Founded in 1958, Jackson Lewis is dedicated to representing management exclusively in workplace law with more than 600 attorneys practicing in 45 cities nationwide. Jackson Lewis has a wide range of specialized practice areas, including: Affirmative Action and OFCCP Diversity Planning; Disability, Leave and Health Management; Employee Benefits, including Complex ERISA Litigation, Workplace Privacy and Executive Compensation; Global Immigration; Labor, including Preventive Practices; Litigation, including Class Actions, Complex Litigation and e-Discovery; Trade Secrets, Non-Competes and Workplace Technology; Wage and Hour Compliance; and Workplace Safety Compliance. In addition, Jackson Lewis provides advice nationally in other workplace law areas, including: Reductions in Force, WARN Act; Corporate Governance and Internal Investigations; Drug Testing and Substance Abuse Management; International Issues; Management Education, including e-Based Training; Alternative Dispute Resolution; Public Sector Issues; Government Relations; Corporate Diversity Counseling, and College and University Employment Law and Compliance Issues
March 8th, 2010
Tags: law firm, sass, training|
Category: community, customer service, document management, SaaS
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