The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/67910
As we advance another year with the Law2020® initiative, we can't help but notice that things keep evolving. Some ideas we thought would take years to mature have reached fruition and others have gone by the wayside. This year gives us a great opportunity to do a status check on what has changed, what is moving forward as expected and what new ideas organizations should keep in mind. ILTA recently engaged in a "virtual roundtable" with three member thought-leaders to get their insight in these areas. Each person's interview can be heard in its entirety on the accompanying podcasts. Thinking back over the last two years, what technologies have advanced more quickly than anticipated? Dick: Mobile devices beyond the BlackBerry — iPad seems to be the leader, but iPhones, Androids and others are becoming more popular as well. I'm very concerned about these new consumer-type devices because of the security-breaking opportunities they could potentially provide to unscrupulous individuals. Precious email data and documents reside on these devices, so if malicious applications were installed, large data leaks could result. Protection software for mobile should be an up-and-coming market. Peter: If we look at infrastructure technologies, such as VMware and SAN, they've moved along in response to the market wanting more out of them, and this advancement has been fairly incremental. One area that has seen a lot of growth is e-discovery — there's more awareness and vendors are releasing amazing new tools and products. But again, I don't think this has been disruptive; they're reacting to market demands. The obvious disruptive technologies, as Dick mentioned, are tablets and smartphones. They've created a new market and consumer use has exploded. This has forced us to change the way we deliver service. Gareth: Peter touched on this, but what comes to mind is the litigation space and the various technologies that are developing around predictive coding, analyzing data, searching data and crunching data. When I was at LegalTECH in New York, I was blown away by the sheer number of innovative products in this space, driven by the mushrooming amount of data that needs to be looked at for litigation cases due to the advent of social media and everything that needs to be analyzed and disclosed. Practice management systems have made huge strides to become enterprise systems that run law firms like corporations rather than just managing partners' accounts. Also, the world of CRM has risen to a whole new level. People are realizing they have to be a lot more subtle and sophisticated in the way they're looking at, understanding and engaging with their clients to be sure they have a proposition that stands out from the crowd. And of course I agree with my colleagues that iPads and their apps have quickly taken hold. A whole industry has grown up around developing apps and new ways of working. _________________________________________________________ Speaking of iPads, their high adoption rate has raised the question of whether tablets will replace laptops in the legal profession. Do you think they will? Gareth: At our firm, we don't have a high laptop estate — most of the lawyers work in the traditional way of spending 15 hours at their desks. The last thing they want to do is go home and keep on working. We've had remote working capabilities for quite some time, so people haven't necessarily even needed a laptop. However, we're finding that people are using iPads when they didn't use anything before in a mobile context, so they're filling dead time with productivity, as well as obviously using them as personal devices. I, for example, use my tablet when commuting on the train every day, but I take my laptop when traveling long distances. Whether it's an iPhone, tablet or a slimmed down laptop, people will use different tools that fit their way of working in the context of where they're working. Dick: Many attorneys carry both a tablet and a laptop, so I see tablets as simply another type of device to have in our toolkits; they are not a replacement for laptops. Tablets are great for people who are reading and consuming information or dealing with short messages and documents, but as soon as you go beyond that, laptops will still be the primary tool. Peter: I agree with Dick. Tablets are great for consuming content — reading, browsing, researching and watching videos — but their Peer to Peer 111