SaaS
Last week The Law Society of British Columbia’s Cloud Computing Working Group published online a report with recommendations regarding the use of cloud computing by legal professionals. Recommendations included in the report include: 1) Guidelines to help lawyers conduct due diligence in researching a technology providers and cloud-based solution. (The report refers to “third party […]
...READ MORE
Proposed NC Ethics Opinion on Cloud Computing Returned to Subcommittee
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 […]
...READ MORE
Top Ten Basic Security Practices for a Virtual Law Office
I love SaaS. I depend on SaaS to operate my virtual law office. I support an attorney’s right to choose their own practice management tools and make their own business decisions whether it’s in the cloud or in a filing cabinet. But there are responsibilities that come along with choosing any practice management system and […]
...READ MORE
Feedback on SaaS Ethics Opinion
Below is the text from my letter to the NC Bar Ethics Committee regarding their proposed ethics opinion on the use of Software as a Service (SaaS) in law practice management. The Committee has received only two comments so far. This is an important issue that will have a big impact on attorneys in NC and potentially elsewhere […]
...READ MORE
Should a SaaS Vendor’s Data Center be an Agent of the Virtual Law Firm?
Below is a short and to-the-point article that I drafted for the NC Bar Association’s Technical Advisory Committee after our last meeting discussing the proposed NC Ethics Opinion on SaaS. I wasn’t critical of the opinion at first, until I spoke with a few SaaS vendors and others who explained their positions in greater detail […]
...READ MORE
Revised Proposed Ethics Opinion on SaaS
UPDATE: CHECK OUT THIS POST by Erik Mazzone, Director of the Center of Practice Management at the NC Bar Association, on his Law Practice Matters blog. Erik is concerned that the proposed opinion will limit the cloud-based vendors that attorneys in NC can use based on the location of their servers. While most legal SaaS […]
...READ MORE
Video from Presentation at UNC Chapel Hill Law School
Thank you to NC Jolt for inviting me to speak to law students at UNC School of Law in Chapel Hill last week. Special thanks to 3L John Kivus (@kivus) for making the connections. I appreciated the opportunity to share this topic with the next generation of legal professionals. Awesome questions from the attendees as […]
...READ MORE
Evolution of the VLO 1.0
When my husband and I sold VLOTech, our legal software as a service solution that created virtual law offices, to Total Attorneys in the fall of 2009 we were anxious to see some of the items on our development list taken to the next level. Almost a year and a half later, I’m excited to […]
...READ MORE
Virginia & the Ethics of Cloud Computing in Law Practice
James M. McCauley, ethics counsel for the Virginia State Bar, has written an article for the February issue of the Virginia Lawyer Magazine, entitled “Cloud Computing — A Silver Lining or Ethical Thunderstorm for Lawyers?” Even if you aren’t licensed to practice in Virginia, I would recommend reading this well-balanced article on cloud computing. McCauley summarizes […]
...READ MORE
Outsourcing and the Virtual Law Office
A virtual law office relies on a third-party provider to operate. A legal SaaS provider maintains my virtual law office and the data is hosted on a server that is maintained by another third-party company that has leased its servers to my SaaS provider. By using this form of technology to practice law online, am […]
...READ MORE