Encryption, Privacy and the Dark Side of the Internet

Encryption, Privacy and the Dark Side of the Internet was written by Duane Croft, a Norman, Oklahoma lawyer with an engineering background. This Oklahoma Bar Journal article covers encryption in depth, while still being readable for the lawyer with only basic knowledge on the topic. Certainly today's lawyer does need to understand the basics of encryption, even if he or she does not care to know the mechanics.

I hesitate to keep labeling things "must reading" but I think you will learn quite a bit from this piece and especially his comments on “scary-level” encryption. So check it out: Download Encryption Privacy and Dark Side of Internet.Croft.OklaBarJ (PDF File)

I also have some companion resources for you. Not Just For Paranoids: 4 Reasons To Encrypt Your Digital Life is a nice article from MakeUseOf.com that does a fine job of pointing out why you would want to encrypt files. It also has some links to additional basic encryption articles.

Encryption Made Simple for Lawyers was published late last fall in GPSOLO magazine. It was written by David G. Ries and John W. Simek. These two colleagues are quite the experts in this field.

Hopefully this trio of resources will give readers some comprehensive information about this subject, which is becoming more significant every day, especially for professionals that deal with confidential, private or privileged information in digital files.

How many does it take to change a light bulb?

Q. How many ministers does it take to change a light bulb?

A. It depends on whether the light bulb is really willing to change!

The same is true for lawyers and law firms.

I've been knee-deep in reviewing materials on change, particularly lawyer and law firm change, for a few months now for a project I cannot blog about just yet. But today several features about change crossed my Twitter feed and appeared in my inbox today. So, lawyers, if you have the time to think about your future this week, here are some resources for you.

No one is more surprised than me that I am leading off with words from a law school faculty member on change. (It is not like most law schools have been rushing to embrace needed changes.) But Frank H. Wu,  Chancellor and Dean of UC Hastings College of the Law has an opinion piece titled What Threatens Law Firms that is short, cogent and, in my opinion, spot on. (Not that the good chancellor needs my approval.) You might quibble with a detail or two, but he certainly isolates some of the issues our profession faces.

A blog post from Bob Ambrogi led me to this video on Guide to Change Management at Law Firms.

You can check out the credentials of the panelists at Bob's blog post. But let me attest, as someone who has seen a fair number of discussions on change management, this one is very good. (And nothing against the appearance of the fine panelists, but you can listen to this one hour program without having to watch the video the entire time.)

I didn't get to attend the recent ReInvent Law™ conference in Silicon Valley or the previous events. But Daniel Martin Katz, assistant professor at Michigan State's School of Law and one of the conference organizers, garnered some publicity afterwards when he was quoted  by announcing at another event, "I'm developing a group of assassins who are going to [reform] the profession." You can stop by the ReInvent Law™ Laboratory website to see new developments.

Richard Susskind, author of The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the nature of legal services has just released a new book called Tomorrow's Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future. I'll be writing more about that when I complete it, but don't let my busy schedule delay you from purchasing this affordable new resource.

The point is not really whether a light bulb or a law firm wants to change. We rely on precedent for the law and have a comfort level with doing things as they have always been done. The question is whether your law firm is one that recognizes the need to change.

I've been robbed while out of the country - Please Send Money!

Well, actually, I'm not out of the country, I have not been robbed and I am still in possession of my passport. No hotel manager is breathing down my neck to pay my bill or else.

Most readers smiled when they read this because they have received bogus emails supposedly from their friends outlining the "robbed, stranded, broke, plane about to leave, please wire money" scenerio and they recognize the story as bogus. But people still fall for this scam, often relatives or friends who are not sophisticated Internet users. Many Oklahoma lawyers have received these type of emails recently and it seems like a good time to mention this scam. I received one today that was pretty good. It was from a law firm email address where the spouses were lawyer partners and it had both of their names in the subject line. The email address is their real email address, a now-hacked AOL address. I'm certain most lawyers would not fall for this. But I talked to the lawyer and some of their former clients have contacted them with concern already. So, if you are looking for content for a client newsletter or for your website, this warning might be good to share with your clients.

Two final points: 1) if I am ever stranded out fo the country and need help, I promise to voice call you the old fashioned way and 2) if you do want to send me money, feel free. I promise to put it to a better use than the scammers would have, in my opinion anwyay.

What I am Reading Today (Legal Ethics and Money)

I know "what I'm reading" is not a great title for a blog post. But I've noted a lot of good reading material that I wanted to pass along to you today.

Law Society of British Columbia's Cloud Computing Checklist Lawyers are quite correctly concerned about cloud computing because law practices deal with confidential client. But life is not risk-free and it is more a matter of balancing risks than eliminating them. This quite comprehensive checklist is the product of much obvious hard work and a worthwhile download for any lawyer. As the post introducing it notes, hopefully these checklists will shrink in size as the legal profession becomes more comfortable with the cloud and industry standards become more clearly defined.

Tips for Handling Client Funds Trust account problems are one of the top reasons lawyers are disciplined in the U.S. That is the opening sentence of this fine set of tips authored by Mark Bassingthwaighte, who is a risk manager with Attorney’s Liability Protection Society, Inc. (ALPS). There are some simple and clear tips included here and every lawyer who has a client trust should read this article, share it with other lawyers in the firm and set it aside to read it again this time next year.

Accepting Credit Cards on the Go The idea of swiping a credit card with your smart phone or tablet to accept a retainer fee or clients paying their bills online at night while you are sleeping is quite attractive to lawyers. But accepting credit cards can be a challenge for lawyers, especially if they want to accept mobile payments. This article will really help you get up to speed on how the process works. I admit to a bit of positive bias as the author is CEO of the company that provides our member credit card benefit here in Oklahoma. This has been a very popular member benefit.

An Attorney’s Guide to Engagement Agreements  Allison Shields recently wrote a series of posts about the essential elements of a retainer agreement or engagement letter. This is a compilation of all of the posts. She has very clear, brief and easy-to-read points.

Happy Reading!

Great Tutorial on Setting Up Two-Factor Authentication On Dropbox

As I noted in my Oklahoma Bar Journal column earlier this month on Email Issues For Lawyers Today, Dropbox really had no choice but to speed up releasing Two-Factor Authentication for better security. They have now done that and you should set it up. Thanks to a tweet from PDFforLAwyers.com, I can now pass along to my readers a truly GREAT tutorial video How To Set Up Two-Factor Authentication On Dropbox from DocumentSnap.

Email Issues For Lawyers: Four Not-So-Frequently Asked Questions

Email Issues For Lawyers Today is my column in this month's Oklahoma Bar Journal.

Dealing with email is a challenge for many business professionals. I actually intended to write this piece about something that was related, but I was inspired by a blog post by Erik Mazzone, Should Lawyers Use Encrypted Email? and something very interesting that one of our Oklahoma family lawyer practitioners said in a presentation at our OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference. You hear talk at technology conferences criticizing lawyers for using web-based email. But it is still widely used, at least by solo lawyers. I came up with four questions and some discussion about each, even if there are not clear cut answers sometimes. Many times a lawyer simply has to decide for himself or herself--at least until there is a consensus or some clear guidance from your jurisdiction. But there are some clear situations where the email that a client uses can be very problematic.

If anyone strongly disagrees with something in the column and sends me a link to an article, I might do a follow up with some links. I don't host comments on my blog. So to so that you will have to use ---- EMAIL!

The Future Is Hazy -- Thoughts From Some Deep Thinkers

Today's post from those helpful folks at Attorney at Work begins as follows:

"This summer, the hottest ticket at state bar association annual meetings seems to be sessions focused on the future of the business of practicing law. And with just cause. There’s a lot going on out there to make us nervous."

I've certainly been a part of that trend. As readers of this blog know, I did a plenary session on the Future of Law Practice for ABA TECHSHOW in March and gave much the same talk to attendees at the OBA Solo & Small Firm Conference in June. I've also been invited to give the same address at several other state bars. At about the same time of our Solo & Small Firm Conference, Attorney at Work’s Merrilyn Astin Tarlton was giving a keynote address on the topic for the State Bar of Texas. In advance of that, she asked several "top practice management experts" for advice on what actions lawyers should be taking now to prepare for the future. (I put that phrase in quotes since she included me in the group.)

She has now shared those responses with all of us in today's post The Future is Hazy - Now What? This is a quite excellent collection of ideas, comments and observations. Some of these ideas might even be slightly contradictory. (And there's one that I would think was stolen from my TECHSHOW speech, except I think Matt left Chicago before my talk.) As that great philosopher Yogi Berra said: “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

But when you think about it, is there really anything more important for you to do sometime this week than spend a few moments reading and thinking about your future?

Twelve Ethics Tips for the First-Rate Lawyer

Legal ethics advice can sometimes be dry and off-putting. No one likes to be lectured to, especially about not stealing, lying or misbehaving. Oklahoma Bar Association Ethics Counsel Travis Pickens gives us twelve practical suggestions about maintaining ethical standards and improving our law practices at the same time. (I will note that I introduced Travis to the subject matter for tip #9.) Read "Mere Professional Conduct" by Travis Pickens and share the link with a first-rate lawyer you know. 

Great Free Trust Accounting and Legal Ethics Information from Minnesota

Setting up a lawyer's trust accounting procedures in Quickbooks is certainly doable. But if you are not an accounting whiz, you might be worried you missed something. There are other tools like GnuCash (free) or Microsoft Office Accounting 2006 or 2007. Earler this year, the Minnesota Bar Association announced the release of its Trust Accounting Guides that have previously only been available to Minnesota Bar lawyers. In the spirit of public service, all lawyers can now benefit from their step-by-step instructions contained in:

• Keeping Client Trust Accounts with GnuCash 2.2.4;
• Keeping Records for Client Trust Accounts Using Microsoft Office Accounting 2006 or 2007;
• Using QuickBooks 6.0 for Lawyers’ Trust Accounting;
• Trust Accounting with QuickBooks 2005 Professional;
• Keeping Clients’ Trust Accounts with QuickBooks 2010 Professional

This blog post from the MSBA Practice Blog contains all of the details and a link to the download site. You do have to furnish an e-mail address so you can be notified of updates or changes. This is truly a great public service. So thanks to the MSBA!!

But that is not all! As noted in the blog post linked above, they are also giving away Minnesota Legal Ethics, a 400 page ebook treatise by William J. Wernz. You read correctly. They are giving it away for free for you to download. So let's all show the Minnesota State Bar Association our thanks by taking them up on their offer to download these great free resources.

Using Checklists in your Law Practice

Using Checklists in your Law Practice is the title of my Lawyers USA column that was just posted to the Web. I'm sure everyone reading this uses checklists in many different ways. But I hope my column on this very important topic will give you some new ideas. One idea that I recommend to every single lawyer is to get a copy of The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande and read it! The book is not very expensive and may be the book that shows you the way to a more successful practice. You can also "check out" his online checklist for checklists to help evaluate your personal checklists.