Our new poll, which asks lawyers to rate the openness of their firms’ in-house Internet access, was born of a couple of rumours we’ve heard lately of firms who block access to sites like Twitter and…gasp!…lawandstyle.ca. Cast your vote now, if you haven’t already — the poll appears in the column to the right of this post.)
An article posted last week on Slaw highlighted some tips from the Ohio State University Leadership Center on how companies can embrace new ideas. The first of these, “Create an idea-friendly environment,” and the second, “Protect idea people,” are great advice for law firms — and, indeed, any company — with restrictive online content policies. The breed of employee who craves unfettered access to the Internet is also among the most likely to put forward innovative new solutions and suggest bold directions.
Maybe we’re a bit biased, but we think all lawyers should have limitless access to the Internet at work. Yes, that means some extracurricular tweeting, Facebooking and, dare we say, Precedent-ing will happen, but the potential benefit of keeping young, innovative, idea-people lawyers happy in their jobs (and less likely to look for work elsewhere) should outweigh any concerns about lost productivity. And besides, today’s smartphones make it impossible to stop people from tweeting or accessing the Internet during business hours, anyway.
Finally — and perhaps this goes without saying — we hope to start a productive conversation about Internet access at law firms. So please add your thoughts in comment form below, or re-tweet this, or print it off and slide it under the door of any Luddites in your life. And if you’re one of the people who’s reading this at home because lawandstyle.ca is blocked at work, please let us know.