The International Legal Technology Association’s 2022 survey is a broad treasure trove of data reported from 541 law firms.
There are 11 major topics including Infrastructure, Document Management, Practice Management, and Business Continuity.
My focus is on four of the twenty-seven questions surveyed in the Security section.
Password Management
ILTA 2022 Technology Survey
Password managers are one of the most highly recommended solutions for security. They help with: using complex passwords, deterring repeat usage of passwords, and providing secure storage for passwords. There is a learning curve to using a password manager, but once I got up to speed, I wondered how I would live without it. We have so many passwords to juggle these days. I am surprised that 50% of respondents are not providing a password manager.
2. Multi-factor Authentication
ILTA 2022 Technology Survey
Perhaps the single most recommended security mitigation is multi-factor authentication (MFA). Here we see Duo Security (a Cisco company) is the leader at 45%. There are three Microsoft solutions listed which total 27%.
In legal tech, it’s notable when a third-party solution is more widely adopted than a Microsoft solution as most law firms operate on the Microsoft stack.
3. What do You Secure with MFA?
ILTA 2022 Technology Survey
The largest response is VPN/Remote Access. Then Office 365. It’s very good to see high adoption of MFA for these widely used applications.
4. Which Phishing, Vishing, Social Engineering, or Security Awareness Program?
ILTA 2022 Technology Survey
KnowBe4 is the stand-out at 62%. Others used are Mimecast, Traveling Coaches, Proofpoint, managed service providers, and solutions developed in-house. Only 7% reported “None.” As phishing and social engineering are the cause of about 90% of exploits, law firms are wise to have these programs in place.
It was wonderful to meet with you all! Last week was the first fully in-person annual educational conference of the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) since 2019. ILTACON is truly an event of peer-to-peer sharing. Many of the members have relationships dating back decades. Having an in-person event again was fantastic.
Security was one of the most in-demand topics. There were sessions on phishing, ransomware, breaches, and solutions. Here are three takeaways from sessions which I attended on what to do when a breach occurs. Note: I am not a cybersecurity expert. These are commonsense points which anyone can learn from.
At 10 PM on Saturday night, Asher in Support gets a call from an attorney who says, “I’m looking at a screen which says, ‘Your network has been locked!'” Asher was educated to escalate any such messages immediately. Let’s assume that this message gets to the CIO within minutes.
Who does the CIO call first?
Is it a contracted or pre-vetted cybersecurity services provider?
Is it the cybersecurity insurance carrier?
In a session which included both a panelist from a top cybersecurity services provider and a panelist from a major cybersecurity insurance carrier, each argued that they should be the first call. Each may have distinct objectives.
The cybersecurity insurance carrier will immediately send in their SWAT team. This expertise may be quite welcome at the law firm. A good carrier will bring great expertise to bear. At the same time, law firms report that when the insurance carrier team arrives, they lose control of the process. The firm IT team may be sidelined, by contract. The insurance company may have as its top priority forensics. One of their objectives is to discover if the law firm were out of compliance with the policy.
The cybersecurity services company will also send in their SWAT team and bring great expertise and experience to bear. If the firm has vetted the services company their objectives should be aligned with the law firm’s.
Objectives include stopping exfiltration of firm data and business continuity. Law firms will want to safely get back to business-as-usual as quickly as possible.
2. Breach Counsel
One of the first things that the cybersecurity insurance carrier will do is to get their breach counsel engaged in the process so that communications are privileged. Law firms are uniquely positioned to get their own attorneys involved. Whether it is the insurance carrier’s attorney or a firm attorney, involve an attorney on all communications immediately. There will be public communications following the breach and perhaps legal action. Need I say more?
3. CIO Fiat to Shut Down Systems
When there is a breach, time is of the essence. Data may still be exfiltrating. While no law firm wants to do so, the best action may be to shut down all systems immediately. The moment when the firm’s data is flowing out to the hackers is not a good time to educate and negotiate with the firm’s executive team regarding shutting down systems. The CIO should have clear authority in advance to shut down systems.
Bonus: Have a Plan
Your firm is a target. Services, like Dark Utilities, make it easy for hackers to to set up a command center (C2) for malicious operations. Prices for C2-as-a-Service start at EUR 9.99. Easy, inexpensive tools mean that firms of any size are a target for “drive-by” attacks.
Even while your full incident recovery program is in development, it’s time well-spent to have a plan for the three points above in order to respond quickly.
One of the benefits of ILTACON is that we learn what has worked for other law firms in real world settings. Each firm should assess their own response plan.
How Technology, Mobile Devices, and AI Are Shaping the Legal Industry in 2022
In February of 2022, Above the Law interviewed 500 attorneys on their views on technology, mobile devices, artificial intelligence (AI), and more. Of those 500, Associates made up 32%, Partners were 26%, and in-house counsel were over 12%. Above the Law and Litera have published their findings in The Modern Lawyer Report.
Over 58% over these lawyers consider themselves to be slightly ahead of the curve or a trendsetter in terms of use of technology. The lawyers who agreed to participate in this technology survey appear to be more tech-savvy than the general lawyer population.
Above the Law / Litera
Mobile Device Usage
Roughly 57% of attorneys reported that they can do “many things” or “everything” on mobile devices. From our vantage point this seems high, but consider the point above, that the majority of the attorneys who responded self-report that they are ahead of the curve in using technology. From our view of law firms, the third option, “I can follow email on mobile but that’s about it,” is the the common state of the art in law firms today.
Above the Law / Litera
Document review and approval is certainly the greatest need which attorneys and legal professionals have on mobile devices. Our clients tell us that the ability to review, annotate, compare, sign, and email documents in order to have complete workflows is their goal.
Above the Law / Litera
What is delaying mobile device adoption?
The report cities, “One partner stated, “My vision is too poor to work on such small screens,” while an in-house respondent noted that “security risks preclude the ethical use of mobile for most legal tasks.”
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence or AI is a somewhat amorphous term, granted. Over 60% of these advanced technology users consider AI to be valuable to business success in legal services.
Above the Law / Litera
One of the conclusions of The Modern Lawyer Report is that, especially with respect to mobile devices and artificial intelligence, lawyers are not taking advantage of technology’s full capabilities. There is plenty of opportunity for them to adopt these technologies further.
Update: Here is alinkto register and download the report from Litera.
If you have questions or comments, I’d like to hear from you. Write to: contact at mobilehelix dot com
-Maureen
Maureen Blando is the President and COO of Mobile Helix, the makers of the LINK encrypted app for lawyers. LINK provides simple workflows for Document Management and Email in a single, secure app. Note: the LINK App offers font sizes up to XXL. (See above. for relevance.)
When you think about the tools you use most in your day-to-day work, your document management system (DMS) and Outlook are probably at the top of the list. Working in both on your mobile device, though, has historically been a huge struggle, if not impossible. LINK brings them together in a single, secure, easy-to-use app.
LINK is designed to support the workflows attorneys use all day, every day. The app works with today’s most popular mobile devices – iPhones, iPads, and Android phones and tablets – and supports the three leading document management systems, iManage Work®, NetDocuments, and eDocs by OpenText.
LINK for Smartphones and Tablets
LINK is solving the pervasive problem of lawyers being unable to adequately work on their mobile devices. With LINK, lawyers can fully access their documents, compare them, mark them up, edit them, email them, and more, as easily and securely as they can on a computer.
Yes! LINK is in production for Android smartphones and tablets.
Now you can use LINK’s workflows including annotation, comparison, and Word app editing with Manage Work® 10 on Android. NetDocuments and eDocs are supported, too! LINK is an encrypted container app therefore your files are separate from device access.
In this short video, view the major features of our encrypted LINK app.
LINK is integrated with iManage, NetDocuments, and eDocs DMS as well as Outlook and SharePoint. LINK enables essential workflows in a single app. Review, annotate, compare, and email files. Edit securely with the Word App.
Want to learn more? Email us at: contact at mobilehelix dot com.
It was this time last year when began to learn how profitable law firms had been in the first year of the pandemic. That profitability cast a completely different light on the historical law firm pressure to work long hours in the office.
Therefore, I looked forward to this year’s Thomson Reuters report. There are many terrific charts in the report. Below I’ll highlight three charts, mainly to encourage you to read the entire report. You can find the report here.
Profit Per Equity Partner Growth
This could be called “The Money Chart” in the legal market, growth in Profit Per Equity Partner (PPEP). Growth in 2021 was quite healthy, even compared to the robust growth in 2020. Mid-sized firms lead with 22.4% rolling 12-month growth.
Lawyer Turnover Analysis
The strong demand in legal services lead to the high turnover rate, especially amongst associates. The associate turnover rate for all firms reached 23.2% across all firms. For Am Law 100 firms the turnover rate hit 23.7%. See the report for a chart which breaks this out by firm size.
Associate Compensation Growth
For Big Law firms “facing the retention crisis,” there was nowhere to go but up. Associate compensation rose by over 15% in the Am Law 100.
There is so much more in this report, including:
Lawyer head count growth
Hours worked per lawyer
Expense growth and overhead detail (recruiting, staff compensation, KM, and technology lead)
Demand growth by practice
The report navigates “managing the way back” and lists specific, actionable recommendations. A new, essential approach for law firms: “flexibility.”
The 8th annual Okta Businesses at Work report is a treasure trove of data. It’s fantastic that Okta shares this data. Moreover, the report is very visual, full of graphs and charts. Here are four which illustrate enterprise web application usage in 2022.
While the gap between Microsoft 365 and the rest of the pack widens, Google Workspace moves into third place.
Of Okta’s customers who use Microsoft 365, what are the most popular “best-of-breed” apps which those customers also use? One of the stories here is growing use of Google Workspace. Zoom is still growing. Reminder: this is only a picture of Okta’s customers.
Phenomenal growth by these up-and-comers, although you may not be familiar with a few of these applications. Netskope provides cloud-native security products and services. Notion is for collaboration. TripActions covers travel, credit card, and expense. Postman is a platform for building and using APIs.
You can see the steep growth in remote work here. Amongst Okta users, Palo Alto Networks Global Protect and Cisco AnyConnect are the leaders in remote access.
The notion that legal tech can reduce burn out is a huge proposition. But a very interesting topic.
I recommend this article because this question is answered by seven current or former law firm employees, from former partners to firm innovation leaders. I always like to hear from the source. 🙂
Dig into this article for more on these topics:
“constant and unrelenting pressure to bill more hours”
“the real issue of burnout is a bigger question about culture”
“Legal tech can be a part of the solution but it only goes so far.”
“Legal tech” is not the panacea for lawyer burnout. However, I think all of us in the legal ecosystem want legal technology solutions to make work easier for attorneys. We want to enable attorneys to get more or work done in less time. We want to reduce and simplify repetitive and tedious work. Software solutions have a major role to play.
FisherBroyles is a 283 attorneys law firm whose attorneys and staff are “distributed” or remote, a model which is increasingly attractive to attorneys. In their model, attorneys take home 80% of what they bill. In traditional law firms, the take home is often closer to 33%. In 2021, FisherBroyles top-paid attorney took home $6,742,540.
Managing partner, Michael Pierson, says that their hourly rates are often two-thirds what a traditional law firm would charge as there is no real estate cost.
It’s definitely working for the firm. In 2021, FisherBroyers revenue was up 30% to $136 versus $105 million in 2020.
