Virtual Law Practice

Tag: North Carolina

  • NC Cloud Computing Opinion Published

     

    At its meeting on January 27, the NC State Bar Council adopted and published the last version of 2011 Formal Ethics 6 “Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property”.  The last version of this opinion was sent to subcommittee in July 2011, but the discussion over the structure of the opinion has been almost a year and a half-long process. At one point, a draft of the opinion contained a list of minimum requirements for the use of SaaS which raised some concern with NC lawyers as well as others nationwide who are interested in the development of legal technology.

    The final conclusion of the published Opinion:

    a law firm may contract with a vendor of software as a service provided the lawyer uses reasonable care to safeguard confidential client information.

    The ethics subcommittee that reviewed this issue should be commended for the amount of research and thought that they put into this process. They pulled in experts on both sides on the fence on the issue of using SaaS in law practice and really made an effort to understand the broad impact that the opinion would make on NC practitioners in a variety of practices. At one point, experts in online banking, which also relies on strict security standards for the use of SaaS, were called in to provide their perspective.

    Here are some key items to notice in this opinion: (more…)

  • New Version of NC SaaS Ethics Opinion

     

    The NC Bar has published the revised version of it proposed ethics opinion entitled “Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property”, 2011 FEO 6 on the website. It will also be published in the next issue of the NC State Bar Journal. 

    You can read some of the history of this opinion in this post.  After a year or more of subcommittee review and revision, this latest version will hopefully be the final one that the Ethics Committee recommends for adoption by the Council at their January meeting.

    The subcommittee removed the list of minimum requirements for the selection of a technology vendor. Many of the items on the list had raised concern as detailed here by myself and others. The new version of the opinion sticks with the “reasonable care” standard requiring the attorney to do his or her due diligence in researching the technology and any third-party provider. The proposed opinion states:

    …a law firm may use SaaS if reasonable care is taken to minimize the risks of inadvertent disclosure of confidential information and to protect the security of client information and client files. A lawyer must fulfill the duties to protect confidential client information and to safeguard client files by applying the same diligence and competency to manage the risks of SaaS that the lawyer is required to apply when representing clients.

    (more…)

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