Peer to Peer Magazine

PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGA ZINE OF ILTA 10 BEST PRACTICES downtime disrupts lawyer productivity or applications brokering sensitive data where security vulnerabilities must be addressed immediately. Ask Your Vendor: How do you respond to scenarios requiring immediate upgrades? SIMPLICITY VS. PERFORMANCE Firms also must evaluate applications from the end user's point of view. With limited screen real estate, apps must balance simplicity of design with features and performance. Often providers place a higher importance on simplicity, limiting the functionality of mobile applications compared to the desktop version. Most legal apps need to provide lawyers with all the features available on the desktop version and real-time synchronization with the desktop application to ensure the availability of data across devices. It is the task of the vendor to create smart designs that marry simplicity with functionality rather than choosing one over the other. Ask Your Vendor: How do you balance simplicity with features and performance? Will your approach meet the needs of my lawyers? If required, does your application provide full functionality and synchronize data across devices? Another key consideration for mobile application design is native vs HTML5. This determines whether lawyers get exactly the same application regardless of their mobile platform or they get an application designed their specific devices. Apps that just present information for reading and passive consumption are not as sensitive to user interface (UI) variations across devices — text is text. However, apps involving data entry or high levels of user interaction perform best when they take advantage of the native style patterns and capabilities of each device. Native apps tend to have better speed and performance, can operate offline, can take advantage of native device features (such as voice-to-text using Siri or Cortana) and will help users feel "at home." For applications used in critical job functions, native is almost always the correct choice. (And while there is some controversy surrounding HTML5, the key question is whether the specific app is fast-performing with a native-feeling UI or if corners have been cut.) Ask Your Vendor: Is your application native for all devices or built on HTML5? Will the user experience meet the expectations of my lawyers, who are accustomed to the sophisticated native applications available in the consumer market? THE MOBILE MANDATE In today's increasingly mobile work environment, firms are challenged to provide modern tools that enable their lawyers to work effectively wherever they are. Firms must balance the needs of many stakeholders when selecting mobile applications, mitigating information security risks for the risk team, managing the complexity of implementations and upgrades for the IT team, and providing intuitive functionality for the lawyers. At the same time, legal software vendors must keep pace with skyrocketing demands for sophisticated mobile applications by investing resources in mobile development. With firms and vendors working together to communicate stakeholder requirements and deliver applications to meet them, our lawyer Sarah will no longer feel compelled to scour the consumer app store — she will have the tools she needs to carry out her responsibilities effectively, built to meet the unique needs of her law firm. Native apps tend to have better speed and performance, can operate offline, can take advantage of native device features (such as voice-to-text using Siri or Cortana) and will help users feel "at home."

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