Can stormy weather interfere with cloud computing? Sounds ludicrous to say, but a 2012 Citrix survey found that 51 percent of Americans, including a majority of millennials, believed it could. Are lawyers very far off that mark in their understanding of the cloud?
Every year, the American Bar Association’s Legal Technology Resource Center publishes the Legal Technology Survey Report, a survey of the legal profession’s use of technology. The 2016 survey is now out, and it contains some surprising findings about lawyers and the cloud. (The full survey costs $1,995 and separate volumes cost $350 each.)
According to the survey, only 38 percent of lawyers say they have ever used cloud-based software for law-related tasks. That percentage is only a slight budge from the prior three years, during which the percentage hovered around 31 percent. Fifty-three percent say they have never used cloud-based software, and 10 percent have no idea whether they have or not.
Of the lawyers who say they have not used cloud computing, the survey asked them what factors stood in their way. Not surprisingly, the top concern is confidentiality and security. Other top concerns are losing control of their data, unfamiliarity with the technology, and the costs of switching to new software and paying a monthly subscription fee.
(I have many more details of the survey’s findings on cloud computing in a post at my Lawsites blog.)
These are all legitimate concerns. But I have to wonder about the accuracy of the survey’s top-line number that only 38 percent of lawyers have used cloud computing in their practices. I’m not questioning the survey or doubting that is what lawyers reported. Rather, I suspect that many lawyers who say they have not used the cloud actually have.
Read the rest of the post at Above The Law.