The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/163881
ask the expert invoice approval workflow, library research with e-books, learning management systems and litigation support into the cloud are all good examples of how more and more firms and legal departments are starting to embrace the cloud. Dean: Apple's iPhone and iPad initially raised some eyebrows. However, it's not the hardware that caused the disruption; it was at the application level. In the desktop and laptop arena, we have experienced almost a kitchen sink philosophy in terms of a single product doing almost everything you needed (Microsoft products are a good example) and, I believe, more than you ever wanted. Apple devices, on the other hand, have single-purpose applications that do one thing well, and you need different apps for different functions. Starting out, email and presentations were the key drivers for these iOS devices. People are getting increasingly familiar with them, and we're getting more and more requests from attorneys to support these devices, primarily in the courtroom. There is an increasing variety of legal vendors providing apps for iPads and iPhones, making them much more versatile than for the accessing email. In addition, back to what Mike mentioned, one of the key technologies that was disruptive but is slowly being adopted is the use of unified communications platforms. These roll together VoIP, collaboration, whiteboarding and videoconferencing, and not only the integration of internal services but also external ones like Skype. Mike: The emergence of webcams, which allow for instant faceto-face communication between the home team and others in remote disparate locations, including traveling co-workers, clients or remote vendor resources, has really taken off. Donald: BYOD has almost come full circle. It was initially interpreted as highly disruptive. Now we hear from Gartner that this is the wave of the future. Everything is going to be BYOD — IT shops better get used to it because that's the state of the future. Then you have clients saying they don't care what device you use, but you'd better know where every piece of their information is at all times and be able to make sure that none of their confidential information is lost or leaked to the outside. And, by the way, if that ever happens, you will no longer be our law firm. That's the disruption. BYOD is a hugely disruptive technology that has been accepted, but we need to rethink it and decide whether our clients are comfortable with the way law firms are implementing it. iOS recently received Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) certification. How will this affect the use of third-party email apps? Dean: I think the FIPS certification will help with security as it will address many of the questions firms are being asked in terms of security audits from financial institutions, banks and insurance 106 Peer to Peer companies. Many mobile device management (MDM) solutions include secure email applications, which are no longer needed with FIPS certification; however, I don't think FIPS certification alone allows us to remove MDM solutions because we still need to manage the huge fleet of mobile devices out there. The FIPS certification removes BlackBerry's argument that they're the only one certified with FIPS. What we need to focus on is education in acceptance and adoption of the key best practices and policies which help our user base best use their devices in the most secure manner to protect the privileged and confidential information carried on them. Donald: I think it's going to exacerbate the problem. Now all of a sudden lawyers and IT departments are going to decide, well, iOS has this certification; that means it's safe. But that doesn't do away with the fundamental issues of information governance. There needs to be careful thought to not only whether the system is secure, but who owns the information on it, how are they going to protect it, and how are they going to guarantee against its inadvertent disclosure. FIPS certification has very little to do with that. Mike: I'm not sure that will have direct implications for us. We depend on our corporate IT group to certify and authorize our various technologies, whereas a lot of firms might be able to go out and select their own technologies based on client demands. However, it certainly could introduce the use of additional thirdparty apps or additional adoptions of the Apple platform because it's now more accepted for federal work. Rick: Mobile device security is high on everyone's priority list. The best way to secure data is with encryption, whether that's accomplished via a device's native encryption and security capability (and FIPS certification as is the case with Apple iOS6) or through third-party products. I think we're going to see a lot of innovation in this space during the next year. Third-party mobile device application vendors (such as Good Technology, for example) are going to have to adjust quickly to keep up and continue to innovate, or they'll quickly become obsolete. This new FIPS level-one certification for Apple iOS 6 has already resulted in the large-scale displacement of BlackBerry business in some government agencies. Do you envision BlackBerry will make a comeback in legal with its recent releases? Donald: I look fondly back to the all-BlackBerry days when these issues didn't exist. BlackBerry devices were designed for business, not consumer, use (by the way, that's one of the problems with them), so they had information governance and IT controls built in from the start. You didn't have to worry about information governance issues. But I'm not sure BlackBerry is ever going to make inroads in the consumer market despite these inherent benefits. I'm sticking with my Android and Mac!