This past week members sought advice on the benefits of converting to a VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), access to personal email services at work, policies on maximum password age and more. Explore curated sources on these topics including some from ILTA’s treasure chest.
VDI – Is It Right for You?
According to ILTA’s 2015 Technology Survey, ten percent of respondents have fully rolled out VDI. See page 36 of the survey for details on organizations researching VDI or in the process of rolling it out internally and/or for remote use. Listen to the ILTA podcast, “VDI – Does It Still Make Sense?” to hear the pros, cons and recommendations. If you need convincing to move to a VDI environment, consider the ILTACON 2015 sessions “Successful VDI Projects: Yes, It Can Happen,” “Remote Access: What’s New with This Old Problem?” and “Tools to Manage Your Desktop Environment.”
Don’t Shoot the Messenger – Personal Email at Work and Maximum Password Age
No one likes to hear “no” or “you can’t have that” but we often say this to our office due to security best practices. Restricting access to Gmail or other personal email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. will not win you a popularity contest but may save you and your firm from some security risks. ILTA’s 2015 Technology Survey indicates that eighteen percent of respondents block personal email and 20 percent block Facebook and similar sites. See page 234 of the survey for details on special treatment applied to employee access of certain websites. Learn how to implement a restrictive policy from the 2015 LegalSEC Summit session, “Keeping It Secure: Provide the Internet in a Bubble.” In “Should Firms Restrict Access to Personal Email?” Joseph Marquette states, “the employee satisfaction upside does not outweigh the downside risks of exposed client data, malware and ransomware.” Similarly, remind employees to limit work email to work related functions as Kraft Kennedy suggests in “Using Work Email for Personal Business.” While you implement policies restricting access to certain sites, you may as well set a policy for the maximum password age. You can use the Password Policy Template developed by the ILTA LegalSEC team. For more beginning guidance on strengthening your security related policies and practices see “Security Architecture 101” also from the 2015 LegalSEC Summit.
SOMETHING EXTRA – ILTA’s 2015 Staffing Survey, ILTA Volunteer Contributions and another LegalTech Hong Kong Summary.
Besides the statistics and ratios in ILTA’s staffing surveys, the 2015 ILTA Staffing Survey includes case studies on IT staffing at four different sized firms: Holland & Knight LLP, Sedwick LLP, Blank Rome LLP and Rodey Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb PA. It also features an about developing an onboarding process for all employees including new IT professionals article by ILTA volunteer, Bradelynn Boyce Dendy. Start reading the 2015 ILTA Staffing Survey today.
There’s no writer’s block with ILTA volunteers. Lesha Van Der Bij shared her beliefs on artificial intelligence in the legal profession in “Staying Ahead of the Artificial Intelligence Curve.” Michael Morris produced the first in a series on adult learning styles in “How Do Adults Learn. Part 1: An Overview.”
Chris Dale of the eDisclosure Information Project provided an in-depth summary of LegalTech Hong Kong in “Another Success for ILTA and ALM at LegalTech Asia Hong Kong 2016.” He also compiled links to a series of LegalTech New York interviews by Doug Austin of CloudNine Discovery.
As ILTA’s content curator, I’m always monitoring the discussion forums to discover what topics are top-of-mind among the members. Each week, I focus on a few areas that spark your interest, and I provide some curated resources to assist your own information-gathering on the topics. If there are specific topics you would like assistance exploring, please contact me at joanne@iltanet.org