Canadian Law Firms Adopting Cloud Computing

The most recent issue of the Lawyers Weekly features an article on the spread of cloud computing in Canadian law firms.

Cloud computing refers to 3rd party Web-based services that remotely host all the programs a user would need for his or her job.

According to Lawyers Weekly:

"Concerns surrounding confidentiality, privacy, security, business continuity, disaster recovery and jurisdictional issues continue to be hurdles that make law firms pause before taking the plunge. For many lawyers, an overriding concern is control over the data. Some legal observers contend that when data is placed in the cloud, law practitioners lose — or at the very least appear to lose — control over client and firm data as it is ensconced in the hands of a third party technology services vendor."

Few Canadian professional associations have developed rules or positions on the subject, but the article provides a list of questions cloud providers should be asked about service levels and data protection before law firms take the leap.

A companion article describes various cloud services that may be of interest to legal practitioners.