Taking a vacation as a litigator (especially a solo litigator) can be difficult. Frankly, a vacation may not feel like much of a vacation.
In today’s technological wonderland it’s easy to work from anywhere. The bad thing is clients are increasingly expecting lawyers to work from anywhere.
In my opinion, the best solution is to compromise. Don’t ignore your practice while you are gone, but don’t immerse yourself either.
Many attorneys, especially solo attorneys, use Dropbox to run a paperless law office.
Many skeptics and critics, however, contend that cloud storage/file sync is not safe.
Whether you use Dropbox, or are considering using it, here are some ways to enhance data security with Dropbox.
This is a world you’ll never understand. And you always fear what you don’t understand. — Carmine Falcone, in Batman Begins
A: Yes, essentially. And fine under the ethics rules. Most of what you may have heard to the contrary comes from people who don’t understand the cloud — so they fear it.
If you are relying on a file sync service like Dropbox or SugarSync as your cloud backup, cut it out. It isn’t backup, and you are putting your data at risk. File sync is not backup.
Fortunately, it only takes a few minutes to improve your backup strategy. Read this post, then take a few minutes to properly set up both cloud backup and local backup.
Yesterday, Dropbox admitted that it was “hacked.” Sort of. In fact, a number of users’ accounts on other websites were hacked, not their Dropbox accounts. Because those users used the same password on Dropbox (which is not smart, for reasons that should be obvious), the hackers were able to access their Dropbox accounts, too. One of the users in question was a Dropbox employee who (for some stupid reason) had an unencrypted document containing Dropbox users’ email addresses, which then got a lot of spam.
Today, Dropbox announced an upgrade to its Pro storage plans. It’s 50 GB plan ($99/year) now gets you 100 GB, and its 100 GB plan ($199/year) now gets you 200 GB. Current Pro plans will be upgraded automatically.
This is undoubtedly a reaction to the low prices Google Drive launched with, although Dropbox will still cost almost twice the cost of Drive storage. Just the same, it’s a sweet perk for paying subscribers to what is still the best file-syncing utility available.
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When Google released Google Drive, I was so excited that I moved all my Lawyerist and Bitter Lawyer files to it right away. Two months later, I am still using Google Drive, but I have moved some “mission-critical” files back to Dropbox, and I am still using Dropbox for my law firm’s files.
There are some awesome things about Google Drive, but it still has some issues that Google is, presumably, ironing out.
ShareFile is a filesharing service from Citrix, which is also responsible for services like GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting. It is also gunning for Dropbox‘s customers, claiming to beat Dropbox in a number of ways.
While ShareFile has some features that would be attractive to a central IT department, its storage capacity is too small — and its price tag too high — to be much use to most law firms.
Yesterday, Google finally announced Google Drive, a Dropbox-like expansion of Google Docs. Google Drive allows you to sync your files between multiple Windows, Mac, and Android devices, and an iOS app is coming soon.
So does Google Drive herald the beginning of the end of desktop computing? Possibly. But at the moment, it’s just a promising alternative to Dropbox, iCloud, SkyDrive, and similar services. Here’s an overview of Google Drive — and its warts.
When it comes to storing files in the cloud, there is a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt going around. Some of it is even spread by cloud-based software companies who are trying to get a leg up on their competition.
I try to balance security with utility to make sure I protect my client files while enabling me to access those files whenever and wherever I need them. Here’s the gist: Encrypt everything, use Dropbox wisely, use local backup, and backup to the cloud using CrashPlan.
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