A couple of recent posts on Slaw.ca offer a glimpse into the possible future of technology in the legal world: cloud computing.
For the uninitiated and reluctant: don’t worry, you probably already do a bit of this “new” thing, but maybe you didn’t know it had a name. Any website that manipulates and or stores files online is part of cloud computing — which means that Facebook and Twitter count, as does your webmail account. And if you upload videos and use Google Docs to share or edit files, you’re already an expert. (Did you know that you can also edit images, remove annoying line breaks from text and create PDFs online?)
A Slaw.ca post from earlier today provides a link to a consultation paper about cloud computing recently released by Canada’s privacy commissioner. The paper points out some of the time- and cost-saving benefits of working in the cloud, but also raises some concerns:
Cloud computing infrastructures are premised on a business model that charges the consumer fees on a perpetual basis for something that they currently pay a flat rate for or even receive for free. Cloud computing depends on net access, access is arguably slower, more expensive and less reliable than hard drives or CPUs, and may also be prevented, surveilled or tampered with by external forces, such as government, employers or law enforcement.
Addressing these concerns is essential for tech-savvy lawyers hoping to convince their firms’ reluctant IT departments to allow for more cloud computing. This, as we learned through a recent poll asking Precedent readers’ about Internet policies at their firms, can be an uphill battle.
Another post on Slaw.ca, from yesterday, might help in this regard. Jennifer Garton-Jones offers up slides from her recent presentation at the ABA Techshow on how cloud computing can help lawyers who travel a lot for work, and is also a cornerstone element in a push for a paperless office (a topic also discussed in the latest issue of Lawyers’ Weekly).
See you in the cloud.
Image by Kevin Dooley under a Creative Commons license