The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/163881
Thomas Mercer is the CEO and founder of File Drop Vault, a secure communication system for professionals. He has worked in IT with a focus on security since 1999 in a variety of industries, including environmental consulting, insurance, real estate and medicine. He can be contacted at info@filedropvault.com. Technology experts are well aware of the risks and limitations of many modern technologies used for the storage and communication of information. When you work for a firm whose leadership has expertise in something else, like law, a curious challenge often occurs. The leaders of law firms, like other professional organizations, naturally focus their attention on the professional services their firm offers and often view the other aspects of their organization as expenses to be minimized. Even those who are generally aware of the benefits of improved IT can have trouble appreciating the value of proposed changes. Information technology has become dramatically more complex in the last 30 years. Many organizational leaders and senior attorneys entered their respective fields before the Internet. They have been focused on their profession, adopting the most common technologies (albeit sometimes reluctantly) and they now are using email, client data systems, online court filing systems and more. Those transitions are never easy, so how do you convince the leaders in your organization that they need to adopt new or different technology that requires behavior changes? How do you convince them to implement a solution that may be more expensive than what they currently have in place and get them to agree that this is an important solution in servicing clients and keeping their confidential information private? Peer to Peer 85