Legal Cloud Solutions: Ethics & Security Standards Resolved
Law firms are moving to the Cloud at increasingly high rates for numerous reasons; The influx in multiple office firms, remote locations, increased IT costs, principles needing to have access to documents and client information away from their desk, and the stringent document retention requirements are just to name a few. Legal professionals have a unique requirement in their data storage needs, as many records are considered permanent and have an infinite retention compliance to abide by, while others must be kept at minimum for 7 years. The amount of data grows daily and with that, so does the liability and cost. This conundrum has led to many questions that will be addressed here, but first lets answer the most important question, what is Cloud Computing and how can it help.
Cloud is used as a metaphor for the internet, when you combine the “Cloud” with Computing, you get a virtualized IT infrastructure that is hosting your services and software online. One of the great benefits of Cloud Computing is that users don’t need the knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. IT is being transformed to a utility based service rather than a traditional client-server infrastructure. Cloud Computing provides users with a highly scalable solution with resources and security that could not be replicated by a legal firm without an investment at minimum of $250k. Providing common business applications online that are accessed via the Internet while the software and data are stored on servers at a remote data center, Cloud Computing has caused a shift in IT to be on demand.
It is important to note that while Cloud Computing is used by businesses of all industries and sizes, this research and analysis will be focused on the Cloud Solutions for Legal Professionals. Because of this, the focus and special attention needed by Lawyers, Paralegals, Partners and their staff in technology solutions should not be minimized.
While the advantages afforded by law practice cloud services are many, several issues arise relating to the relative security of the newer cloud-based systems versus traditional, on-premise setups. In a law firm context, the use of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) or SaaS (Software as a Service) cloud computing raises ethics issues around storing confidential client data.
Click Here to Download the Full Whitepaper – Free!
Learn more about Cloud9: www.cloud9realtime.com
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
This content is advertising.
