The Ethics Committee at the North Carolina State Bar voted to send the proposed formal ethics opinion 6 (FEO 6), entitled “Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property” back to the subcommittee to reconsider responses they received to inquiries #1 and #2.
Both of these inquiries contained worrisome minimum requirements for the use of cloud computing that many of the technology providers and attorneys using cloud computing are not certain can be practically implemented without resulting in severe restrictions on the use of a wide number of cloud-based applications.
The Ethics Committee received responses from groups such as ILTSO and the LCCA as well as from individual attorneys both licensed in NC and across the country. You may read the LCCA’s detailed response on their website. Some of the responses from individuals included:
– Nicole Black, author of the soon-to-be published by the ABA/LPM Cloud Computing for Lawyers, provided this response;
– Erik Mazzone, Director of the Center for Practice Management at the North Carolina Bar Association, wrote about the opinion on his Law Practice Matters blog;
– Richard Granat, co-chair of the ABA eLawyering Task Force, wrote critically of the proposed opinion on his elawyering blog; and
– I posted the comments that I submitted to the Committee on this blog a few months ago.
We should have some idea by the end of October about the revisions, if any, that will be made to the proposed opinion by the subcommittee.
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