P2P

23 I L T A N E T . O R G L aw firms increased their technology spend by 7.1% during the 12-month period through November 2021, according to Thomson Reuters' State of the Market Report 2022. This uptick comes despite overall expense cuts but should come as no surprise. How and where work is performed has been transformed by the pandemic. There's been a change in mindset that will not likely be reversed, at least not any time soon. According to a recent Gartner study, the options look like this: • Option No. 1. Reject the hybrid environment and force a return to the traditional location-centric model and work schedule (Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, in many countries or first, second and third shifts). This incurs the risk of employees leaving for more flexibility elsewhere – up to 39% of your workforce. 1 • Option No. 2. Accept the hybrid environment but decline to evolve the work model — continue virtualizing site-centric practices (such as meetings), as was common during the pandemic. This incurs the risk of exacerbating worker fatigue. 2 • Option No. 3. Reinvent work around a human-centric design for the new hybrid environment that ensures performance, innovation and equity — getting it right requires experimentation, learning and iterating. 3 Firms are in the midst of wading through these options and, as a consequence, are experiencing the hottest attorney lateral market in almost 20 years as remote work flexibility becomes a key benefit. At the same time, many firms are actively reinventing work around a more human- centric design for the new hybrid environment—and that takes increased technology, infrastructure, and security. With employees around the world trading offices and conference rooms for email and other messaging platforms, criminals were presented with an increase in opportunity. In 2020-2021, there was a 64% rise in threat volume of malicious email attacks 4 and employees clicked on 3x more malicious emails than they had ever before. 5 Data breach costs increased from $3.86 million to $4.24 million in 2021, the highest in the past 17 years. The average cost of a data breach increased by $1.07 million due to remote work. The logic is straight forward: when employees work from home, there are simply more attack vectors made available to hackers, such as phones, tablets, and PCs. 6 With the exponential increase in security threats, it is more important than ever that attorneys and remote staff be equipped with the most recent versions of their laptops, mobile devices, hardware and software. Leasing and financing firms' technology needs is a sound financial practice that helps firms continually invest and refresh their technology to ensure their attorneys and staff are properly equipped to meet not only the modern security threats of a hybrid workforce, but also to ensure their productivity is optimized in the new workflow. 1,2,3. Gartner: C Suite Redesigning Work for a Hybrid Future 4,5. Mimecast: Securing the Enterprise in a COVID World 6. https://www.cybertalk.org/2021/12/02/alarming-cyber-security-facts-to-know-for-2021-and-beyond/

• Cover