Home Mac, Work Mac. – Benefits - Part 1 of 2

Many Mac Attorneys use their Macs and other Apple Devices both at work and at home. This means that your business Mac, iPhone, and iPad often does double-duty as your personal Mac, iPhone, and iPad. How do you keep your attorney-client confidential documents and business records separate from your awesome selfie collection and world-class cat video library? How can you keep a photos library of family photos apart and distinct from your pictures of the accident site survey? In this two part series I will touch on several of the biggest concerns regarding using a laptop for both home and work. Although the article is Mac-centric since that is our niche, the same benefits and concerns apply to PC users as well.

 In this first part we will discuss the biggest benefits for the Law Firm as well as the End Users. Next month, I'll discuss the biggest security concerns and provide some strategies to address them. Let's dig in!

Benefits for the Firm

Many firms who adopt a BYOD approach to technology reap the advantage of greater employee satisfaction, reduced IT costs, and a more rapid device upgrade cycle than traditional firm IT may permit. The technology your employees are using is more likely to be current: Currency means not only faster hardware, but more up-to-date software including everything from new features to the latest security fixes.

 BYOD can save your firm money: Instead of absorbing the total cost of a new Mac, iPhone, or iPad, most BYOD firms split the cost of the new device between the employee and the firm. This reduces the hardware cost to the firm and gives the employee extra incentive for properly maintaining his device. This approach does have the potential downside that an improperly monitored device - i.e. one with overly-permissive permissions or lax installation restrictions - can be a gateway for nefarious code to get onto other employee or firm computers, the removal of which can be expensive. We'll talk about addressing this in the 2nd part of this article.

 Employees can use devices with which they're familiar, hence become more productive faster: When it comes to people and technology, they are only going to use the technology available to them to the degree that they are comfortable and confident using it. We have all been shocked at one point or another when a parent or grandparent says, "Let me Google that." Why did they never embrace technology until they got that iPad or iPhone? Because they were not confident or comfortable using it. When your employees are able to continue the devices they already interact with on a daily basis, they have a much shorter ramp up time to getting familiar with it. If an employee has one less thing to become competent at in a new job, he becomes more productive more quickly.

BYOD can lower your IT expenses: BYOD will certainly lower your hardware expenses. That's obvious. It's also possible that software expenses can decrease because newer equipment will ship with the freshest, most secure software.

Benefits for End Users

 True Mobility: Life happens. Kids get sick. Cars break down. Inclement weather. Acts of God. Whatever you call it, it is inevitable that something to happen which keeps you from the office. It is not a matter of whether this will occur or not, but what will happen when it does? Unfortunately, filing dates rarely care about your life situations, so the show must go on.

For those without BYOD policies who may only have VPN to access the office, it can be very difficult to work from outside of the office. You'd be amazed at how many people that supposedly have a VPN solution, never use it because it's either broken, unreliable, or so painfully slow that people only use it in the most dire situations. When mobile devices are setup and able to access firm email, contacts, calendars, firm files, case management software and billing software, employees are able to do almost 100% of what they need to do at the same speed they are used to doing it when in the office.

Here's a client's experience with getting fully setup on Macs and fully mobile

"By converting my law firm from Windows to Macs, what GlobalMac IT has done for my ability to live my life and law practice, has been remarkable. For instance, I am in Paris and my secretary is up in her cabin in the middle of nowhere. She is tethered to an iPhone, and my partner is home with a sick kid in Minneapolis. Yet, we are doing business at a high level; it is instantaneous." Robert Hajek, Hajek & Beauclaire.

This is night and day compared to the shoddy VPN connection available to employees.

Easier ramp-up: Most people's computer training goes like this, "Congratulations, you have the job, here is your computer, get to work." Now, at this point in the employer/employee relationship it is not the right time to say, "Oh, by the way, I've never worked on a Mac/PC/tablet/this Operating System, etc. can you show me how to use it?" So they end up doing their best to figure out how to use it on their own, suffering in silence, very often to the detriment of their productivity. When an employee is allowed to use their own laptop, tablet or mobile phone, they already have a certain level of comfort using it, so they can ramp up faster.

Allow people to decompress: Users are able to check out of work and into personal things easily when needed. When your home Mac is also your work Mac, you can easily switch hats when you need to. Let's imagine you're travelling out of town for a deposition, you've been working all day long and just spent 3 hours after dinner prepping for the next day. You want to unplug, and decompress, so you are then log into Photos and spend some time cleaning up vacation photos to share with your extended family. You check in to Facebook and screen-suck a bit to unwind. Without this, you'd have to travel with two laptops, which simply wouldn't happen.

As you can see, there are many benefits to all parties to embrace a BYOD policy. However, this strategy does introduce some unique security concerns you will need to properly address. Join me here next month for the 2nd part of this discussion and we'll discuss how to cover your butt :)

Tom Lambotte is CEO of GlobalMacIT, we provide complete end-to end legal technology consulting to Mac-Based law firms nationwide. Our service enables our clients to leverage technology converting it into a profit-generator for their firm. We provide complete certainty that all the best-in-class IT policies and security measures are in place, so they can focus on growing the firm. Tom’s methods are based on close to a decade of research, testing and real-world refinement of Best Practices, working directly with Mac-based law firms and firms switching from PC to Mac, across the country and around the world.

Go to Tom is the author of Hassle Free Mac IT Support for Law Firms and Legal Boost: Big Profits Through an IT Transformation. He is a highly sought after speaker at national events such as the ABA Techshow and MacTrack Legal. To receive more profit-boosting tips and ideas to boost your usage of technology, go to www.globalmacit.com/boost, complete the form and we will mail you a complimentary copy of Legal Boost - Big Profits Through an IT Transformation.