Cloud-based data storage is proliferating, hastened along by such technology giants as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. The rise of the tablet (and to a lesser extent the smartphone) as a legitimate vehicle for data retrieval is rapidly facilitating this movement into the ether.
Note, however, that the industry giants identified above who are helping us all to embrace the benefits of the cloud are, for the most part, consumer-driven and not business-driven. Storing your digital tunes in Apple’s iCloud, or in the Amazon Cloud Service, is not quite the same as storing documents subject to HIPAA compliance or attorney-client confidentiality restrictions.
Popular services like Box.net, Dropbox, and other “free” (or nominally priced) document storage services, while somewhat more business-oriented, are still a long way from complying with ABA Formal Ethics Opinion 95-398, which states:
“A lawyer who gives a computer maintenance company access to information in client files must make reasonable efforts to ensure that the company has in place, or will establish, reasonable procedures to protect the confidentiality of client information. Should a significant breach of confidentiality occur, the lawyer may be obligated to disclose it to the client.”
These largely consumer-focused services also make it rather difficult to adopt a “matter-centric” approach to document storage, and do little to facilitate the kind of “profiling” which is necessary to quickly find and retrieve a key document (despite all of our best efforts at “intelligent naming”).
We think that anyone serious about adopting a cloud-based document storage strategy, from the solo attorney to the multi-office firm, should take a close look at NetDocuments before launching that strategy. Having been around since 1998, the folks at NetDocuments have a pretty good understanding of data storage and retrieval, and have a rock-solid infrastructure for managing data.
Basically, NetDocuments adheres to the same rules and regulations imposed by federal regulatory agencies on commercial banks for the security of client data. In fact, NetDocuments storage facility is actually co-located in a bank (in the bank’s secured data rooms, that is). The same rules enforced by the courts for managing the contents of customers’ safe deposit boxes are applied to NetDocuments data. Your documents are viewed as your “digital assets”, just like those paper bonds and trust papers stored in the safety deposit box.
So, share your music with the world up in the cloud, proudly display your kids’ performance in the school play up on YouTube, and freely distribute those vacation photos from one of the many photo-sharing websites available to consumers. But pay a little more attention to with whom you share your client’s court papers. At thirty bucks per month per user (and a 30-day free trial to boot before paying for anything) this seems like a cost-effective, safe, and reliable way to get in the cloud.
Jack Schaller has been active in the field of law office technology since 1989, and has worked with a variety of commercial accounting, legal billing, practice management, and document management software products during his twenty plus years in the software consulting field. During his tenure as a software consultant he has garnered many sales and service awards for his work with legal software products. Jack is a frequent presenter at legal conferences and seminars, and is a regular contributor to TechnoLawyer and other technology publications.