RSS FeedCloud computing tips for lawyers
Cloud computing is one of the best technologies we’ve had in the last decade. It gives us mobility, versatility, security, and powerful ways to manipulate our data. It’s also cheap. Because it’s rooted in the Internet, some express legitimate concerns with cloud computing, mostly centred around data security and privacy. Lawyers may be particularly cautious to deploy clients’ data in the cloud because of lawyers’ unique responsibilities and duties. But a careful look at cloud computing shows that it’s safe for both the general public and lawyers. Its benefits greatly outweigh its costs and some of its features are so compelling, time-saving and economical that every lawyer should be considering cloud computing.
Cloud computing means keeping and processing your data online. For example, in Gmail, you read and write email in your browser’s window, but Google’s servers take care of storing, sending and receiving messages for you. Google Docs lets you do the same thing but with word processing. Ufile.ca handles your tax returns. Amazon S3 gives you unlimited file storage in Amazon data centres. All social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Flickr, etc. are also examples of cloud computing. Whenever you delegate data storage and processing to a third party that grants you online access, you do cloud computing. “Cloud” means that the specific physical server on which the provider keeps and processes your data is obscure to you. All you care about is the Internet address of the provider and your own access credentials. Into the “cloud” goes some input, and out of the “cloud” comes some output. That’s how it works.
Benefits of cloud computing are enormous. I can think of ten: 1) you can access your data anywhere with an Internet connection; 2) you don’t have to troubleshoot or upgrade any software other than the access application, which is usually your browser; 3) instead of paying large sums for desktop software and its upgrades, you get a free or low-subscription-fee cloud service; 4) you subcontract data storage to professionals; 5) the cloud can give you a regular, frequent, and professional backup solution; 6) cloud services can come with search and data crunching capabilities that are unparalleled simply because of the massive cloud computing infrastructure; 7) cloud backup services can automatically keep previous versions of your data in a way that is unmatched again because of inadequacy of your home or office infrastructure; 8) the cloud can protect your data from undesired jurisdictions or it can keep the data in specific jurisdictions; 9) the cloud makes it easy to share any part of your data with chosen parties and to control their access; 10) the cloud lets you tap into social networks of billions of people.
But some have legitimate concerns with the cloud. And lawyers are among those voices as members of the legal profession have unique responsibilities and duties. There are two main attributes of cloud computing that cause people to worry. First, you appear to lose control over your data’s physical location. And second, you expose your data to the Internet apparently swarming with hackers (“cracker” may be a better word), spies, thieves, and viruses. All alleged issues of privacy, security, and reliability stem from these two things. Often, critics assume that keeping data and applications on home or office computers is a safe alternative. This assumption is probably the biggest fallacy in the cloud computing debate. Let’s review some solutions to issues associated with cloud computing. Read more
The heavy hand of family law
Ontario’s “zero tolerance” policy on domestic violence has come into question following an unusual court case involving an Orangeville-area woman who was charged with assault after joking in emails that she could solve her marital problems with a gun, if only she could get one.
Alison Shaw, 40, was forced out of her home and ordered to stay away from her three children after her estranged husband claimed to have been “frightened” by the online missive, which followed what a judge described as a “one-punch bar fight” over a month earlier in an area Legion hall.
