Are you worried that you might not be using the technology in your practice as efficiently — or properly — as you could be?
You’re not alone. The Ethics and Professional Issues Committee of the Canadian Bar Association recently published Guidelines for Practicing Ethically with New Information Technologies as a supplement to its Code Of Professional Conduct.
A quick scan of the table of contents reveals many ways in which information technology has inextricably joined itself to the modern practice of law. That business extends from marketing online, serving clients, participating in online legal communities, and keeping legal business data secure.
Perhaps the following lines from the “practice competence” section best sums up the report’s thrust: “The lawyer should…develop and maintain a facility with advances in technology in areas in which the lawyer practices to maintain a level of competence that meets the standard reasonably expected of lawyers in similar practice circumstances.”
Is this reasonable? From an ethical standpoint, most certainly, but from a practical view, perhaps not. Computers, smartphones and piles of sophisticated software inundate today’s professionals, but all too often employers leave out the key ingredient: training.
Consider: while the results aren’t as physically disastrous as putting motor vehicles in the hands of the unlicensed and untrained, the legal and business consequences of not driving the tools properly can also lead to catastrophic wrecks.
Fortunately, other movements in the legal community have created momentum for better use of information technology, including Sedona Canada principles and the “paperless” office trend.
The report offers several checklists (some briefly outlined here) that you can use to scan your practice both for potential problems and ways to improve how you work. For more information, download your own free copy of the report from the CBA website.
Security best practices
Reality check: no information system is perfectly secure. Having said that, here are several habits computer users and companies can adopt to protect themselves from data theft:
- Have everybody sign on to corporate systems using strong passwords.
- Encrypt every storage device.
- Protect both wired and wireless networks.
- Protect each computer using anti-malware programs.
- Publish clear computer usage policies and properly explain the application of said policies to anybody who accesses your information (including clients, where appropriate).
Metadata handling tips
Unwittingly ceding information to adversaries during litigation and causing stock price fluctuations are but two of the possible consequences attorneys risk when they fail to manage their document metadata properly.
But what is metadata? By way of example, consider a simple Word document. The text is the data. The creation date, author’s name, comments and revisions are but four types of metadata: information that describes the contents of the document.
Here are two basic tactics that help minimize the threat of metadata falling into the wrong hands:
- Limit the amount of metadata you create.
- Scrub metadata from each document you send outside your trusted circle. Modern office productivity suites let users quickly and easily scrub their documents.
Information technology checklist
There are two types of electronic devices in a company: those that management knows about, and…
An increasingly tech-savvy workforce brings seemingly harmless devices like USB thumb drives or iPods to work. When they do, company data may begin to reside on these devices.
Oddly, the report does not mention this phenomenon. It does, however, list a variety of IT tools businesses use. Below is a partial list of those tools, along with reasons for controlling their use.
Office productivity software
Files that they open may contain malware.
Unless the sender and receiver take special measures, electronic mail can be read if intercepted.
Voicemail
Today’s systems can create sound files from messages and send them, or links to them, via email.
Wireless communication devices
Remember when eavesdroppers got an earful during conversations between England’s Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles?
Smartphones
These contain a wealth of information, including contacts, calendars, e-mails, tasks and phone logs.
Intranets and extranets
These are often repositories for information and communications media that can lower the volume of e-mail.
The Internet
Many electronic attacks originate from the Net.
This article originally published in The Lawyers Weekly.