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Sensei Article Featured in San Bernardino Bulletin
April 23, 2020
“Coronavirus: Tech Issues for Lawyers Working at Home” by Sharon Nelson, John Simek, and Michael Maschke was featured in the April 2020 San Bernardino Bar Bulletin.
Excerpt:
The world is trying to deal with the coronavirus pandemic in a variety of ways. Controlling the spread of the deadly virus is at the top of the list. Travel is being restricted, and some countries have even closed their borders. The United States has been slow to react, but recent events have accelerated action by the federal government, states and major corporations. Social distancing and maintaining clean hygiene practices are the normal mode of operation now. More and more businesses are asking their employees to stay at home where possible. Some are being commanded by civil authorities to have their employees work from home.
What does that mean for the practice of law? How will you meet with clients? Many firms have or will adopt a telework environment and allow their employees to work from home. Making the working remotely decision will have different consequences depending on your current capabilities and whether a plan is already in place. While we can’t cover all the possibilities and capabilities of every law firm, we’ll attempt to attack some of the common considerations.
Equipment
Let’s start with a very basic item…the computer. Hopefully, everyone is already using a laptop as their main office machine. If not, expect some popular models of laptops to be in short supply. Worst case, you may have to find a Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc. and see if you can purchase a consumer grade machine. If you planned properly, laptop users are already configured for remote access. Perhaps now would be a good time to modify your infrastructure plans and budget for laptops and docking stations for those folks that need a mobility option.
Some firms are telling all employees to work from home. Believe it or not, people are picking up their work computers, monitors, keyboards and all other peripherals on their desk and taking them home. We can’t imagine the headaches the IT support people will have instructing a user to connect all the cords and devices up properly, not to mention configuring the desktop to connect to the home network. Our suggestion is to avoid taking desktops home and just deal with laptops and home machines. It will save a lot of headaches, wasted time and support costs. Speaking of home machines…they bring a whole new set of problems and liability which we’ll address later.
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