Cybersecurity and privacy were two of the primary topics at the 2016 TechShow.
Great learning at conferences is one of the best things ever. But if you can’t be there, hearing the takeaways of smart folks may be the next best thing. In fact, because those correspondents have done the hard work of taking notes and synthesizing, it may be the ideal outcome.
That’s how I felt about this year’s ABA Techshow, which I was not able to attend. (I was in a different lawyer event just blocks away, but the closest I came to joining the techies was nearly crashing the Clio party. Next year.)
Although I missed the event, seven technology experts have boiled down for the rest of us their take on the biggest TechShow messages. You should bookmark and read their complete analyses here.
To synthesize even further their event coverage, here are a few insights from those smart people, whom you should follow (links take you to their Twitter worlds, which you should join):
From Catherine Sanders Reach: “This year seemed to have had an unofficial theme: privacy and security.”- From Natalie Kelly: Uber Eats may be a fascinating analogue to assess how we deliver legal services.
- From Heidi S. Alexander: Stop making unencrypted calls, and be sure you’re using the cloud securely.
- From Reid F. Trautz: Our regulatory system is stifling innovation in the legal profession.
- From Tom Lambotte: It’s scary out there, even for Macs.
- From: Nora Regis: Better use of Excel, including pivot tables, can be your law-practice friend.
And in case you decide you need just a little more impetus to pay attention to technology, especially in regard to cybersecurity, enjoy this article about a hack of New York-based Cravath Swaine & Moore (originally reported by the Wall street Journal, but that’s behind a paywall, so the NYT wins.)
To access law firm data, hackers bypass the front door.
As the article opens:
“Federal authorities have warned for years that big law firms are ripe targets for computer hackers because they are information-rich repositories of corporate deals and other sensitive client information.”
“But big law firms, as a general rule, are loath to confirm whether they have been victims of data breaches, largely out of fear of alarming clients. Breaches and potential intrusions at large law firms often go unreported and generally come to light only anecdotally—often in news reports or discussions at legal conferences.”
Well, the anecdotes are growing more and more common. What are you doing to ensure your data is secure? Write to me at arizona.attorney@azbar.org with your tech-success story.
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AZ Attorney 
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