Tag Archives: LINK

Quarterly Feature Roundup | 2025 Q1

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Welcome to the LINK App Feature Roundup, where you can find information on new, enriching features of the LINK App.

You can learn more about these and other new features by visiting our Feature Roundup page, or by clicking the links to the Quick Tips noted below.

Import a Newly Created Document from a Microsoft Office App

Now you can create a new document in one of the Microsoft Office Apps (like Office M365, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint) and import that document to either LINK files or your DMS.

Learn More

Check-in a File Shared in a Teams Channel to DMS

There are multiple ways you can check in a file shared in a Teams Channel to your DMS workspace. The simplest way allows you to do so from within the LINK app, saving you from having to open the Teams app separately.

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UI Enhancements for Email

There are multiple improvements to the look of the email UI. The most noticeable differences are a redesign of the address selector (when you are writing an email and selecting email addresses) and a redesign of the attachments overlay that pops up when you are attaching a file to an email.

With the new Attachment Overlay, easily navigate all available file repositories, including iManage, NetDocuments, OneDrive, Emails, Notes, and more. You can add multiple files at once by using the multi-select feature ā€“ simply tap the checkboxes next to the files you want to attach. You can also choose the format of each file you attach.

UI Enhancements for DMS

There are a few navigation improvements in our iManage app. First, we have added quick action buttons to send emails or edit a file in iManage. Second, we have added a button at the top-left that allows you to quickly bring up the root of the iManage work area so that you can switch from wherever you are browsing to Recent Docs, My Matters, etc. Weā€™ve also added a list of recent items to the homepage of iManage and recent and favorite items to the homepage of NetDocuments.

Microsoft Outlook Configuration Features

Our LINK Email integrates with Microsoft Exchange and has many beneficial features, including the ability to open NRLs, establish predictive email filing to DMS, and more. Some law firms have opted for a configuration of LINK that instead uses the Microsoft Outlook app for email. In these cases, we implement the ā€œopen in hookā€ to connect the MS Outlook app to the LINK app. The following are common workflows that illustrate this configuration.

Open an NRL in the Microsoft Outlook App

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Email Multiple Files via the Microsoft Outlook App

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Import an Attachment from Email to iManage

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Compare an Attachment to a File in iManage

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The LINK App is designed to make working easier for lawyers. This roundup is just a snapshot of the newest features to improve productivity and user experience. There are even more ways to use LINK to optimize your workflows.

If youā€™d like to learn more, check out our Resources page, book a demo, or send your questions to [email protected].

Security & Data Protection in LINK: On Achieving SOC 2 Type 1 ComplianceĀ 

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As our customers know, security and data protection are core priorities of the LINK App. Designed to handle highly sensitive documents and emails, the LINK App ensures the highest level of data securityā€”whether for high-stakes M&A, litigation, or healthcare matters. 

We are proud to announce that Mobile Helix has successfully achieved SOC 2 Type 1 compliance. This rigorous security framework evaluates an organization’s policies and controls to ensure robust data protection. 

We view earning SOC 2 Type 1 compliance as a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to designing secure products and maintaining strict operational controls to safeguard data confidentiality and privacy. This achievement required the dedication of our entire team, and I am grateful for their hard work.  

As we continue to strengthen our security practices and regulatory compliance, protecting our customersā€™ data remains our highest priority.  

– Seth Hallem, Co-Founder & CEO, Mobile Helix

Quarterly Feature Roundup | 2024 Q4

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Welcome to the LINK App Feature Roundup, where you can find information on new, enriching features of the LINK App.

You can learn more about these and other new features by visiting our new Feature Roundup page, or by clicking the links to the Quick Tips noted below.

Emailing a File in Multiple Formats

In LINK you can email a document as a copy of the original format, as a PDF, or as link (NRL). In addition, you can easily attach multiple versions of the same file ā€“ for example, a PDF and NRL link ā€“ to your email.

Learn More

LINK Notes App Sync to DMS or OneDrive

LINK Notes is our built-in application for taking and organizing notes. Now with a new streamlined UI, LINK Notes can easily be synced to DMS, OneDrive, or Windows File Shares per your IT teamā€™s configuration.  

Learn More

Share a File to a Teams Channel from DMS

The use of Microsoft Teams is widespread and growing among law firms, as it allows users to share files and work together in real time. With LINKā€™s DMS and Teams integration, you can easily share a file from your DMS to a Teams channel, making collaboration simple.

Learn More

Email Search Filters

With our latest email update, search your email more accurately and faster with filters for From, To, and Any. You can search emails with a partial keyword or quickly narrow your search by sender or recipient.

Learn More

The LINK App is designed to make working easier for lawyers. This roundup is just a snapshot of the newest features to improve productivity and user experience. There are even more ways to use LINK to optimize your workflows.

If youā€™d like to learn more, check out our Resources page, book a demo, or send your questions to [email protected].

LINKā€™s SDK Integration for iOS and Android

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Have you ever wondered whatā€™s behind the unique and secure annotation capabilities in our LINK App? Read on to learn how one of our key partners helps us to offer this feature that has become so popular with our users.

If youā€™re familiar with LINK, you know that the technology weā€™ve developed allows lawyers to efficiently work on mobile devices like iPads and smartphones while maintaining the high security and privacy needed to manage sensitive legal documents. During development, we needed to integrate our app with existing document management systems to ensure seamless communication and data integrity across different platforms. We also needed to meet strict security standards to protect client confidentiality and avoid vulnerabilities that could occur when transferring documents between apps.

By incorporating Nutrientā€™s mobile SDKs for iOS and Android, we were able to allow lawyers to annotate documents directly within their existing DMS or email attachments. This eliminated the need for file transfers between applications, thus simplifying how user documents are managed and reducing the risk of errors. The integration also enhanced LINKā€™s security by keeping all documents and annotations within a secure, encrypted environment – critical for maintaining client trust and complying with legal data protection standards. To top it all off, the SDKs improved responsiveness, allowing our customers to work more efficiently and meet the fast-paced demands they encounter in their daily work.

Ultimately the SDK integration from Nutrient in our LINK App helps us to empower lawyers to work securely and effectively from mobile devices in any setting. And since our mission is to make it simple for lawyers to work securely from anywhere, we couldnā€™t have asked for a better fit.

Read more about our SDK integration here: https://www.nutrient.io/blog/mobile-helix-nutrient-sdk-ios-android/

Attorneys Love Their iPads. Must it be $2,000 Worth of Love?

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I work with many Am Law 100 (top 100 law firms in the US) who provide iPads to their attorneys. It’s public information that many of these firms achieve millions of dollars of profit per equity partner. Investing $2,000 to enable these profit-generating attorneys to work from anywhere and to be more responsive to their elite clients is a simple calculation.

iPads are fantastic. They are portable. The Pencil is fluid. It’s quick to get to work. Try comparing your time-to-work on an iPad with loading your Citrix desktop!

But what if your firm does not quite have the budget to put a $2,000 iPad Pro kit in each of your attorneys’ hands?

In 2024, there has been a new development in the iPad family. The processor in the iPad Air is now upgraded to the Apple M2, which puts it on par with the iPad Pro 2022. I’ve traveled with the 11″ iPad Air. The light weight is a breeze, and the screen size is perfect for my needs. I love it.

I sent this brief summary (below) of iPad Pro and iPad Air pricing to a law firm IT Director who is considering buying iPads. He told me that it presents possibilities. Feel free to share it, as it may open doors for you and your firm.

Sources: Apple Website and Tom’s Guide

The 11″ iPad Air starts at $599. However, that price is with 128GB of storage and supports WiFi-only. Above, I show relative iPad prices with 512GB of storage, where available, as I would not recommend anything below 512GB. I have also shown pricing for WiFi-only and Cellular-enabled models. The pricing above does not include cellular service.

As shown, you can opt for a 13″ iPad Pro with 512GB and Cellular-enabled for $1,699.
Or, an 11″ iPad Air with 512 GB, also Cellular-enabled, is $1,049.

With any iPad, a Pencil is a must-have. The ability to take notes and mark up documents and images with a Pencil is one of the joys and conveniences of working with an iPad. The Apple Pencil Pro is $129, the Apple Pencil is $79.

I also consider a keyboard necessary for real work. The Apple brand keyboards are pricey with the Apple 13″ Magic Keyboard at $349. There are many highly rated aftermarket keyboards, starting at $39. The Zagg Pro Keyboard with Case lists at $170 (13″) and $110 (11″). They are frequently discounted at 30% off.

In summary, let’s look at two options:

13″ iPad Pro, 512GB, Cellular-enabled, Pencil Pro, aftermarket keyboard ($170) = $1,998

11″ iPad Air, 512GB, Cellular-enable, Pencil Pro, aftermarket keyboard ($110) = $1,288

The delta is ~ $700 per kit.

You don’t have to rely on my analysis – read Jeff Richardson, aka, iPhoneJD. Jeff is an appellate attorney and an avid iPad Pro user. He also writes the best product reviews that any legal user could wish for. Jeff publishes a weekly “In the News” blog which you can subscribe to and receive in your inbox every Friday morning.

Here is the summary from Jeff’s May 2024 review of the new 13″ iPad Pro. For his practice, he prefers the 13″ iPad Pro, but he recommends the iPad Air to “most attorneys.”

With the nice new improvements to the iPad Air, very few users will have a reason to say that they truly need the iPad Pro versus the iPad Air. But anyone who enjoys using an iPad and does so regularly will have a reason to want a new iPad Pro because it is simply a better overall experience. The core of using an iPad is holding a screen in your hand and interacting with it. Making the iPad thinner and lighter, making the screen better, and giving you new accessories that improve the interaction with the screen are all improvements to the most important parts of the iPad. Add to that the M4 chip for even snappier performance and the other improvements and there is simply a lot to love. I’m sure that many people will decide to save several hundred dollars and go with an iPad Air, and that is a perfectly reasonable choice. It is even the choice that I would recommend to most attorneys. But if you are OK with spending more money for a premium experience, the new iPad Pro is not just the best iPad ever, it is one of the best Apple products ever. The iPad Pro 13″ M4 is incredible.
– Jeff Richardson, iPhone J.D.

Jeff captures it well.

Itā€™s certainly worth it to take another look at the iPad Air.

-Maureen

Cybersecurity: The Workforce Gap & the Career Opportunity

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Recently, I came across a LinkedIn post from a friend who was #Hiring for a cybersecurity role. It got me thinking – just how challenging is it to find and crucially, to retain, experienced cybersecurity staff? According to my friend, it is very challenging. Intrigued, I decided to take a dive into the numbers.

World Economic Forum

71% of organizations are currently unable to fill cybersecurity positions, leading to a concerning skills gap in the workforce. This issue has been highlighted by The World Economic Forum, which warns of the potential impact on infrastructure and society as a whole.

2023 Global Cybersecurity Workforce Gap – ISC2

Globally, there is an estimated 4 million person cybersecurity workforce gap. According to ISC2, the shortfall in the United States alone amounts to half a million roles.

Per Fortinet’s 2023 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report, 68% of leaders agree that cybersecurity skills shortages create cyber risks for their organization.

An overwhelming 90% of leaders show a strong preference for hiring individuals with technology-focused certifications per the Fortinet report. Their study also brings encouraging news that 90% of leaders are willing to invest in their employees by covering the costs of certification. In alignment with this, the World Economic Forum advocates for the crucial processes of “reskilling and upskilling,” emphasizing the importance of narrowing the cybersecurity skills gap.

So, the next question is, what does it take to obtain an affordable cybersecurity certificate? This option seems promising: Google offers a Cybersecurity Certificate through Coursera suitable for these roles:

  • Cybersecurity analyst
  • Security analyst
  • SOC analyst
  • Information security analyst
  • IT security analyst
  • Cyber defense analyst

According to Google, this course can be finished in six months with less than 10 hours of part-time study per week. After a free 7-day trial, Coursera charges a monthly fee of $49, resulting in a total cost of just under $300 for the certificate.

If you’re considering a career change, be encouraged by the fact that the demand for cybersecurity professionals is high. There are even relatively low cost ways to achieve a Cybersecurity Certificate.

Good luck!

-Maureen

P.S. – Google says that the median salary in cybersecurity (with 0-5 years of experience) is $115,000 per year. šŸ™Œ

Okta Businesses at Work 2024 – Legal Applications are the Growth Leader

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Okta has application usage data which you simply will not find anywhere else. This year’s report draws data from their anonymized 18,800 global customer base. Okta is a leader in identity and access management products. You may download the full “Okta Businesses at Work 2024” report here.

Growth in app categories: Legal software is the leader in customer growth

Source: Okta (My Annotations) – Growth in App Categories

Okta kicks off this year’s report with a spotlight on Legal applications, which was the leading app category in growth of number of customers.

“Thereā€™s no time for deals or
contracts to get hung up in legal. So, as we look
across the most popular app categories, itā€™s no
surprise that legal tools have locked up a win,
claiming by far the highest growth by number
of customers (35% YoY) and substantial 34%
YoY growth by number of unique users. Apps
including Ironclad, LexisNexis, and LegalZoom
drive this remarkable growth story. (Fun fact:
Ironclad contract management software was
our eighth-fastest-growing app in 2022.)”

-Okta (my bold type)

Let’s look at those three applications:

Ironclad – Offers Contract Management software, which includes moving sales contracts through the processes of review and sign-off to speed the business process.

LexisNexis – Provides legal, regulatory, and business information and analytics, now including Generative AI. LexisNexis is a premier product in legal research.

LegalZoom – Its online platform for business formation helps entrepreneurs by providing legal, tax and compliance products and expertise.

With that promising look at the growth in Legal applications, let’s take a look at four more charts in the Okta report.

Growth of the 50 most popular apps

Source: Okta

There are two leaders here. 1Password is the fastest growing application by number of customers at 39% YoY. Amazon Business with the fastest growing by number of unique users at 89% YoY growth. Law firms are ramping up usage of password managers like 1Password as one of the essential tools to prevent phishing and social engineering exploits.

Not to be missed by law firms is the growth of KnowBe4 at over 20%. KnowBe4 is a Security Awareness Training product, with a focus on phishing awareness. In 2022 I cited that KnowBe4 was the leading Security Awareness solution used by 62% of law firms surveyed in the International Legal Technology Association’s 2022 Technology Survey.

Most popular apps

Source: Okta

It’s easy to see the trend of law firms in the “Overall” ranking. Microsoft 365 is rapidly being adopted, as firms migrate from other Microsoft on-prem products. Number five, Zoom, and number eight, DocuSign, are nearly ubiquitous at law firms. Number ten is KnowBe4, the Security Awareness training SaaS application.

Fastest-growing apps by number of customers

Source: Okta

Data compliance applications make a first time appearance in the fastest growing app ranking by number of customers. Vanta holds the number one position with 338% YoY growth. Drata ranks number six, with 91% YoY growth. Data compliance software is growing at law firms as firms are subject to regulatory and client requirements.

Most popular security tool categories

Source: Okta

Okta entitles this section: “The perimeter shifts.”

They observe that VPN/firewall continues to lead the security tool category, as it has since 2020. However, deployment of VPN/firewall grew 12% last year versus 31% in the prior year. 57% of customers have deployed VPN/firewall tools.

The second fastest growing category in security tools is Endpoint Management and Security, deployed by 43% of customers. This category has grown consistently since the emergence of work-from-home.

For those interested in legal or enterprise technology there is much more in the Okta report worth looking at in detail. You may find the report here.

– Maureen

2023 Report on the State of the Legal Market by Thomson Reuters

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Each year I look forward to the State of the Legal Market report in order to get a more granular look at the past year in legal services.

In 2022, the demand for transactional law firm services declined, most notably in Big Law. But law firms continued to hire apace. The result was a drop in productivity and profits. Profit Per Equity Partner growth was down in 2022. But PPEP is still at a healthy level compared to pre-pandemic.

That is the top line view from the new 2023 Report on the State of the Legal Market by Thomson Reuters with the Georgetown Law Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession.

The following three charts illustrate the slow down in demand and PPEP growth as well as the fact that profit per lawyer is still good compared to 1Q 2020.

This report is a one-of-a-kind. It has has 22 more charts, Including associate compensation, expenses per lawyer, lawyer turnover, collection realization, and more. If you work for a law firm, or if, like me, you provide solutions to law firms, there is certain to be data which will round out your view of 2022 and give you a picture of what 2023 may bring.

You can register for a free download of the full report here:

https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/legal/state-of-the-legal-market-2023/

– Maureen

The LINK App for Android is here!

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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 WorkĀ® 10 on Android. NetDocuments and eDocs are supported, too! LINK is an encrypted container app therefore your files are separate from device access.

It looks fantastic, if I do say so myself. šŸ¤©

Take a look at this brief video to see the LINK App’s easy workflows with DMS, Outlook, and web resources.šŸ”½

LINK App for Android Video – 3 minutes

Let me know if you want to see a demo or to do a trial including Android, iOS, and iPadOS

-Maureen write to: contact at mobilehelix dot com

What is the LINK App? Find out in 112 seconds.

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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.

-Maureen