Out In The Cloud

06/05/10

I think to most ''office'' is a term most suggestive and the one people get most hung up on. It connotes walls, offices, cubicles, copiers, reception areas, conference rooms, fax machines, books, computers, telephones and the human beings to fill the space and use the things. It is a concrete, physical manifestation of your practice and its place in the market. It can be a place of comfort and refuge. It is also costly. With equipment comes maintenance. With people comes maintenance.

I am not suggesting that the above list is no longer relevant or needed in order to practice law. The one thing the office does do, for sure, is provide the mind with a locus - a center, if you will - for all the activities associated with the practice of law. Technology, however, has now provided us with a space that is both center and periphery, both hub and spokes: the Internet. It is a tool for instant communication or access to information.

It is also, with cloud technology, a place to host your IT and telecommunication solutions; document storage, data storage, web based applications such as word processing software and e-mail. To wit: It is a viable and cost effective alternative to traditional firm IT infrastructure. It can be accessed anywhere and anytime. It does not require equipment such as servers nor do you need the IT staff to maintain and troubleshoot.

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What exactly is the cloud or cloud computing?

First the net, eh. Now, the cloud, you say? Oh, those kids.

It does seem nebulous, because it is.

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Simply put, cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided on-demand to your home PC, your laptop at Starbucks and other devices, such as your PDA, smart phone, IPad . In other words, you do not need an application installed on your computer or a centrally located place like a server in order to access it. You access it through your internet connection.

Within the cloud it's possible to check out a legal brief from a document management/retention system and work on it at home over the weekend without the worry that someone else is working on it somewhere else and writing all over your genius (trust me, this happens to everyone once in their professional lives).

All it takes is a simple logon on to participate in or supervise a document review, even while sipping a mojito on a beach in Maui (if working vacations are your style).

Stuck at the airport? You can chair the meeting on that big merger and still have all the presentation slides, media and notes at your fingertips.

It's all there in the bits of data pulsing through the air around you, one need only reach out and grab it.

Which leads me to the crux of this piece. Virtual law is a state of mind. It's a technology solution that can enhance any type of practice. Cloud based resources can be used by large firms to increase efficiency and productivity on a global basis. They can also be used by small firms to cut down on overhead, worry and the need for those four walls called an office.