Let's turn our attention now to collaboration.

What is collaboration? There may be many definitions, but with respect to the subject matter of Legal Informatics, I propose we coin the term iCollaboration and define it thusly:

iCollaboration: Internet enabled access to the right information, at the right time by the right team.

That is really a mouthful - and an incredibly powerful concept. At no other time in the history of the practice of law has iCollaboration been more possible, affordable, productive and terrifying!

You may substitute 'Cloud' for Internet if you wish, but the term 'cloud' simply obfuscates the reality that the Internet merely enables access to a server (or servers) owned by a third party.

What are some of the major iCollaboration services available today?

File Sharing: Box, Drop Box, One Drive, Google Drive, etc.etc. etc.
Virtual Presence: Go to Meeting, Webex, Google Hangouts, HipChat, among many others
Remote Access to on-premise systems: Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP,) Logmein, VNC, among many others
Virtual Private Networks: expanding local networks' connectivity to remote networks
Mobile Devices: phones, laptops, tablets, etc; which make offices optional
VOIP: Voice over Internet Protocol (your new phone system); Vonage, Ring Central, Skype, Digium, AT&T, etc.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) making a virtual office possible and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) practical
Client Relationship Management (CRM): Maybe a part of your LPM System or a mashup of SaleForce, Zoho, Slack or SugarCRM among many others.
Project Management: Basecamp, Trello, Asana, etc.

Most of the communication and collaboration technologies used today are available at no cost or very low cost. How do vendors monetize these services? In some cases they mine your content to serve you advertising. As a consumer you make a choice to share personal information with your cloud service provider and accept the risks that attend that choice. As I've said elsewhere: your privacy is the new Internet currency.

As a legal professional you are bound by a higher ethical standard - and strict enforcement and liability - for upholding that standard. That is why I mentioned 'terrifying' above. Today, your clients' information may become Internet currency.

Regarding cloud services remember: Access from anywhere anytime makes it possible for your information to be accessed by anyone from wherever :(

Here are some big questions pertaining to iCollaboration:

Can you enforce basic security protocols? These would include rigorous password access policies like password complexity, expiration and revocation. (A better solution would be two-factor authentication.)

Can you get your data back? If you push gigabytes of data to the cloud, how do you get it back? One client's board member deleted thousands of files from a shared Drop Box folder and learned, to her chagrin, that the Drop Box recovery method required her to individually check each file she wanted to recover...a process that took hours to perform. What if your Internet can only download a few hundred megabytes an hour? That may be 3-5 hrs per gigabyte? If you choose a vendor with a proprietary data format and they go offline, go bankrupt or merge with another company - how will you convert the old system to a new system? You may not have the luxury of a lengthy planning period.

Can you mediate access? This may seem obvious, but in one small office I work with they had to call (by phone!) each other to determine who could open and change files so changes wouldn't 'collide' - overwriting older changes with newer ones.

Can your revoke access? Another simple idea, but difficult in practice. Suppose you terminated an employee who had been sharing a Drop Box folder. ALL THE FILES MAY REMAIN ON THE FIRED EMPLOYEE'S PC after you cancel their account. Oops! How to you make sure a local backup hasn't given the fired employee indefinite access to files synchronized up to the point they were let go?

Is your data safe? This is by far the most critical question. When all information was stored on paper in an office there was minimal risk of data compromise or loss. When PCs were tethered to a network and fixed to desks in an office the same was true. But now all that information has been liberated from a 'place' - it can truly live free! Encryption is hard, passwords are pesky, people come and go - but anytime/anywhere access remains an alluring productivity talisman.

Beware trading convenience for professional responsibility - it's a career killer.