The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Remember  that old Twilight Zone episode ?  ( It’s a cookbook! )   Well, this time, it’s  not hungry aliens  that are coming for us: it’s your server, and what it really wants is your wallet.   If you haven’t fully adopted cloud software, you’re likely storing your documents and email on a server.  But, there are a lot of associated costs for maintaining physical servers, like: the space they require, their need to be cooled, the electricity they suck up, the requirement to manage your own data backup and the frequent replacement cost.   But, when you are entirely cloud-based, you’re essentially renting server space from another entity (probably Amazon or Google, even if you’re using another vendor), and all those affiliated costs go away.  And, since  the cloud is essentially eternal (at least so far as your lifespan is concerned)  the replacement cost never accrues.  Instead, you pay monthly o r  annual fees for ...

Lawyers are funny in that they sometimes treat cloud technology vendors  like visitors from another planet ,  featuring a mixture of awe and fear.  ( ‘To Serve Man’ - it’s a cookbook! )   This stems from an unfamiliarity with cloud tools; but, lawyers aren’t dumb -- they’re just occupied business managers whose primary focus is the substantive tasks they need to do.  Next comes marketing.  Then comes technology.   If you want the  TL;DR  version of the cloud, here it is: When you use cloud technology, you’re renting space on someone else’s servers (your vendor’s) instead of buying your own.  It’s as simple as that.  And, the reason people love cloud technology is because you access it via the internet.  That means such systems are device agnostic; and, that means you can work from anywhere ( Maui? ) you can  find  a secure internet connection.   Now then, you may be saying to yourself: ‘That’s...