The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/67910
Lawyer Focus Groups: A Look Inside Their Work Has Changed; Has Yours? are asking for something similar: "Let us experiment with the technology and then come to a session where we ask questions specific to what we need." The Future of Getting Work Done Between now and 2020, with the rapid adoption of tablet devices and the move at Microsoft toward touch- and gesture-based computing, today's workflows will be changing yet again. Communication will continue to move out of email as law firms accept and implement instant messaging tools and shared project portals, changing how legal professionals interact inside and outside the firm. As millennials rise into partner ranks, there will be different expectations for how business is done, which will change how administrative staff support legal professionals. Firms may even develop new lines of business, such as the recently publicized Eversheds Agile, the U.K.-based law firm Eversheds' new contract lawyer service. New roles will continue to develop out of these changes, much like that of the legal project manager who helps firms manage complex legal projects. Is there someone on your technology team who is monitoring what is changing and making the connection to what it will mean for the technology and user-support functions for the firm? Rather than simply dropping technology into existing practices, technology professionals should assess lawyers' needs and guide them to new efficient solutions. There should be a plan to continue to assess technology changes, keep track of workflow habits, involve users in decision-making processes and adjust for tomorrow's new reality. And that plan should be revisited on a regular basis, not just during the three-to-five-year technology upgrade cycles commonly subscribed to today. Change is fast, and legal technology professionals need to be agile and ready to adapt alongside the legal professionals they support. Tami Schiller is a Sr. Analyst and Consultant at Traveling Coaches with 13 years of experience in the field of legal technology training. Tami works with law firms to assess user needs through the utilization of focus groups and user surveys, and she is always looking for innovative ways to deliver learning opportunities to busy legal professionals. Tami can be reached at tschiller@ travelingcoaches.com or on Twitter @TamiSchiller. Place for Privacy This case and others like it offer a cautionary tale for today's legal professionals. Despite the fact that requests for production of evidence on social media sites are becoming more common, uncertainty remains regarding how to identify, collect and preserve evidence stored on these third-party sites, as well as how to apply the appropriate data privacy or business rules. Many legal teams, as evidenced in Lester, falsely assume that social media information is protected private information and is therefore not discoverable. After all, Facebook users now have the option of restricting some or all of their information to "friends" only. But according to the Gibson Dunn "2011 Mid-Year E-Discovery Update," courts continue to find that individuals generally do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in social media, regardless of privacy settings. The growing prevalence of social media in civil litigation requires legal professionals to start thinking about it proactively. And it's not just law firms who are playing catch-up. According to "Fulbright's 8th Annual Litigation Trends Survey Report," 45 percent of corporate attorneys reported having no restrictions in place on social media use at their company, displaying a lack of understanding of the potential spoliation risks that may arise without a corporate social media policy in place. There isn't a one-size-fits-all blueprint for addressing the social media conundrum. Retrieving and preserving evidence from social media sites present unique and potentially expensive challenges. And while case law continues to evolve, legal teams need to include social media evidence in the earliest planning stages of e-discovery to ensure that all potentially relevant evidence is identified and preserved, even if it's just a tweet. Peer to Peer 93