Table of Contents

In a new survey conducted by Corporate Counsel called 2011 Survey of In-House Technology, it was reported that 65% of in-house company lawyers now use mobile devices instead of laptops when they're on the road, and 90% use mobile broadband Internet services when they're traveling.Company lawyers are moving away from BlackBerry devices en masse and switching to trendier iPhones and Android devices. Tablet devices such as the iPad are also growing within this audience. Click on the image below to view all of the charts from the study.

With mobile access comes the "always on" career, and company lawyers are not immune to the disease. 40% of law departments have policies stating that lawyers are expected to answer every message they receive, whatever the time or reason.On the flip side, all of this mobility also brings security concerns. The study revealed that only half of the surveyed legal departments have formal security policies about mobile devices. Furthermore, nearly 75% of the surveyed legal departments allow lawyers to bring in digital files from home on their mobile devices.What if an attorney had clients' personal and private files on his iPhone, which accidentally fell out of his pocket at the gas station? Scary. What if he's busy downloading apps, sharing files, and exposing private client data to potential hacking? Disturbing.There are good sides and bad sides to giving employees mobile access and inflicting them with "always on" disease. While it's great to ensure your employees are always accessible, it opens the doors to a lot of security risks, not to mention burned out employees.What do you think about professionals who work on, share, discuss, collaborate, and send private client information on their iPhones, iPads, Androids, and so on? Good or bad? Leave a comment and share your thoughts. Image: Law.com

More blog posts

No items found.
No items found.