A Decade in Legal Tech – 5 Surprises – UPDATE

Travel back in time to 2010. What was appended to your hand back then? A BlackBerry?  Perhaps the least anticipated change in legal is the decline in usage – to nearly zero – of the BlackBerry smartphone. I was rarely separated from my CrackBerry. It changed everything. Always connected. 

Here’s my take on five changes in legal tech in the last decade.  One caveat, I work mainly with documents, email, mobility, and security. Therefore, I see just a sliver of legal tech. You surely have seen others.

BlackBerry and iPhone 11 Smart Phones

1. BlackBerry ⬇️…iPhone #1

In 2011, 40% of attorneys responding to the ABA Tech Survey used BlackBerries. 

UPDATE:

The ABA 2019 Technology Survey shows the iOS usage has reached a record high of 79.2%. Android has slipped to 18.4%.

Image from iPhoneJD.com

Here are the ABA 2018 Technology Survey data on smartphone usage by lawyers:

  • iOS – 68%
  • Android – 25%
  • BlackBerry – 2%
  • Windows – 1%
  • None – 5%

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My favorite iOS usability feature – AssistiveTouch

As someone who takes a LOT of screenshots – we make a mobile app – I am a fan of a set of features in iOS known as AssistiveTouch. With AssistiveTouch, you can create a virtual button on your screen. Tap the floating virtual button on your screen to accomplish one of 25 actions. For example, you can set the menu to take a Screenshot, go to Home, Pinch to zoom, Mute, or Speak Screen.

Screenshot, Home, or 23 other actions

Let’s start with my favorite usage. To take a screenshot on an iOS device, at least for a klutz like me, takes two hands. You must press the Home and Power buttons simultaneously. I must pick up the device to get the angles right to press both buttons with both hands. But when I use the AssistiveTouch virtual button then I simply use one finger to tap the virtual button, then tap Screenshot. The screenshot is snapped, and I’m on to the next screen.

Here’s what the button looks like on the screen.

iPhone Home Screen with AssistiveTouch Button
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What CISOs must learn from Bitcoin and a research team at Georgia Tech

By Seth Hallem, originally published in HelpNetSecurity, Sept. 16, 2013

It has been an eventful time in the mobile world with two recent breaking stories revealing vulnerabilities in the security infrastructure for Android and iOS respectively. While vastly different in their nature, both point to a fundamental lesson that CISOs in an increasingly mobile world cannot ignore – when it comes to encryption, read the fine print. Otherwise you may find yourself up the proverbial creek without a paddle (i.e., remediation strategy).

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Mobile Helix Announces the Release of LINK 3.3 with Local Edit and Digital Rights Management

We are thrilled to unveil our new LINK 3.3 release at ILTACON 2017.

What’s new in LINK 3.3

  • Local edit using the Microsoft Word app
  • Option to send a document using iOS Mail
  • Ability to read an NRL link in iOS Mail
  • Integration with Azure AD Information Rights Management
  • Secure in-app PDF annotation
  • Lighter, faster User Interface

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Surface Pro v. iPad: 3 Legal Mobility Insights from the ILTA Technology Survey

cycling crop -813890_960_720 Pixabay

Each December the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) publishes their tour de force Technology Survey. Where BlackBerries were indispensable, iPhones dominate and iPads are nearly ubiquitous – but the Legal mobility scenario is dynamic. Here’s a look at three charts from the survey.

Microsoft Surface Pro – Making a Run for It 

Is it a bird, is it a plane? Is a Surface Pro a tablet or a notebook PC? Whatever you call it, the Surface Pro is on the radar in Legal now.

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Biggest Challenge: Security Management – 2015 ILTA Technology Purchasing Survey

The 10th Annual 2015 ILTA / InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey was released at ILTACON last week. It’s a quick read and I recommend taking a look at the entire report.

As an introduction to the tech survey, I’ve highlighted the five points that I found most interesting and indicative of our times.

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LINK 2.0 & iOS Apps at ABA TECHSHOW 2015

It flew by like lightning and now the carpet has literally been rolled up on the ABA TECHSHOW 2015. As always, the best part was the chance to network with lawyers who are not only tech savvy but tech enthusiasts and very generous with their knowledge. I attended the “60 iOS Apps in 60 Minutes Session”, which was deeply informative and lots of fun. A few of the top recommendations were:

TranscriptPad – Review and annotate transcripts. Per Jeff Richardson, @iPhoneJD, “at $90 worth twice the price.”
Overcast – Legal podcasts are a popular way to keep up with the latest in legal technology. Overcast is free for the basic version, but the $5 version is particularly productive. It removes the spaces between words and accelerates speed. Adriana Linares, @AdrianaL, especially likes that with Overcast you can send a colleague a link to a specific episode of a podcast.
Scannable by Evernote – An easy way to scan docs and business cards. Email docs or save to several apps including Evernote. Free. Recommended by Tom Mighell, @TomMighell.
Automatic App – This app provides data from your car, including mileage driven and service reminders. Joe Bahgat, @j0eybagodonuts, recommends it as it makes tracking business usage of your car a breeze. $99.95 for the adapter which plugs into your car’s diagnostic port.

There were 56 more apps, including Headspace, for mindfulness/meditation, and the Sonos speaker controller. Jeff Richardson will post them all this week on his blog, iPhoneJD.

LINK Email with File AttachMobile Helix made two major announcements. We released the new version of our mobile app for lawyers, LINK 2.0. LINK 2.0 integrates with WorkSite/FileSite and NetDocuments so that lawyers can securely access their docs and email them to clients and colleagues from smartphones and tablets. With LINK, when you send a colleague a doc which is stored in WorkSite she will receive a viewable .nrl attachment.

Two terrific new features, doc editing and file to WorkSite/FileSite will be released later this quarter.

NetDocuments announced their new Apps Marketplace at ABA TECHSHOW. We are thrilled to be one of their partners. Using their APIs we integrated LINK with NetDocuments so that NetDocuments users can access their docs, Outlook, SharePoint, and other apps from one secure app, LINK, without having to sign-on to each app. LINK’s efficient integration makes it easy to draft an Outlook email, attach a doc stored in NetDocuments, and send it to a client from your smartphone or tablet.

You can test drive LINK for free. Download LINK from the App Store here and follow the directions to “Take a Test Drive.” Try composing an email and attaching a file from SharePoint. If you have a NetDocuments account you can login into NetDocuments from the LINK app and access your own docs in LINK.

Take LINK for a drive. We would love to know what you think!

–Maureen

maureen at mobilehelix dot com

@mobilehelix