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Rekall Technologies Keeps Law Practices Prospering With Growing Remote Workforce

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed how the American workforce views operating as a part of the American workforce. According to a June study from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), “42% of the U.S. labor force is now working from home full-time,” while only 26% are still working in-person. Most staggering is that, given the progression of the pandemic since the SIEPR study, the number of remote workers has likely increased.

This type of unprecedented change to the workforce affects industries across the board, but law offices are having to take particularly hard looks at the future of their industry. With sensitive information, and engagement towards that information, being the cornerstone of their business,  having a dedicated IT Managed Services Provider is critical for understanding the unknown outlook for remote legal practice. Rekall Technologies ensures that productivity and streamlined results remain uncompromised due to the world’s new normal, and that all of your business potential can continue to be maximized from home.

How Can We Stay Productive and Keep Business Alive At Home?

67% of lawyers and law staff hope to remain remote once the coronavirus pandemic has run its course. In order to maintain productivity during a pandemic and beyond, employers must foster increased communication and visibility, while also eliminating business interruptions by ensuring maximum security and technological support. Using industry recommendations, in tandem with Rekall IT solutions, will guarantee a continued seamless transition to an office-less reality. But how exactly is this done?

Entrepreneur recently indicated that the integration of communications and management tools has become one of the top resources for maintaining productivity in an increasingly isolated world. “Communications-based SaaS platforms have now transformed into ‘virtual offices,’ where employees, especially those working in different time zones, can talk both one-on-one and in groups. Particularly, Microsoft Teams and Slack have become some of the most important spaces for daily activities and team interactions and team building.”

Working outside of the safety net of an office setting with dedicated servers can pose potential issues for the continued use of essential platforms like Teams, but Rekall eliminates the need for your firm’s servers by creating a virtual private cloud. With the implementation of Virtual Desktops, Rekall hosts all of your firm’s data and applications, including document management and time-logging, making them accessible anywhere, from any device, along with an integrated Hosted Exchange email platform, allowing for unlimited mailbox storage.

Can We Really be Secure at Home?

While a securely-supported Teams platform is paramount for productivity, no platform’s convenience can compete with physical circumstances. Not all remote offices are created equal, and as such, The American Bar Association has recommended that firms need to exercise increased latitude and understanding with regards to home workspace, and their relationship to privacy and security. Forbes echoes this sentiment, citing experts encouraging employers to take the time to understand what works best for each individual, and to recognize that working from home brings a unique set of challenges for employees caring for children and other family members.

Some employees may have a dedicated home office with a door that assures privacy, while others may need to work at a kitchen table in a noisy, crowded home. In an office, employers have the power to shape the workplace experience and culture, but the pandemic has had to turn that dynamic on its head.

So while an employee’s household may not always provide the most optimal conditions for privacy and security, an employee’s network and workstation can, through the use of VPN’s. A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, provides an encrypted link from a remote employee’s device to their firm’s network, affording the ability to safely deliver sensitive information. Rekall’s enterprise-level firewall offers “256-bit encrypted VPN tunnels between offices for secure remote access, as well as [the ability to] manage multiple internet service provider connections for an automatic internet fail-over scenario.”

When it comes to HIPAA compliance, the firewall offers the ability to allow network connectivity to only pre-authorized firm devices, thus securing against rogue devices, while also blocking email spam, viruses, malware, spyware, and Ransomware. Accordingly, when sensitive phone calls are not an option at home, employers can rest assured that their employees’ work is secure, allowing workers to remain productive and engaged without fear of potential technological roadblocks.

Pay Special Attention to the Coveted ‘Work-Life Balance’

The final measure employers can take to ensure that security, productivity and engagement remain elevated in a remote environment is by paying service to the practice that has come to define employment in 2020; “Work-Life Balance.”

Given the nature of working and living in the same place, the line between professional and personal lives may blur, and some employees may feel an obligation to be “on” 24/7. MIT notes that remote workers tend to work longer hours.

As Forbes also notes, employers and managers can curb these tendencies by setting limits and creating structure for at-home employees, adjusting schedules based on personal responsibilities, as these practices can make a substantial difference in an employee’s relationship with their work. Moreover, employers should still be sensitive to needs for time off, despite employees working from home, considering the potential added responsibilities of families being home indefinitely. Encouraging breaks and time to recharge is critical.

Rekall Technologies Helps Take Away the Added Pressures of Remote Work

Running a law firm outside of an office is difficult enough, but, in conjunction with Rekall Technologies, law firms no longer need to be constrained by misconceptions about feasibility. Supporting law firms by taking over all technology responsibilities and implementing the very best technologies since 2010, Rekall’s primary goal has always been lowering law firm technology anxieties and minimizing firm tech management. Removing the frustration of tech management from partners and firm administrators’ day-to-day allows remote firms to focus on primary operations, lightening the load of conducting business in a remote ecosystem. Rekall Technologies is serious about providing you with the most comprehensive IT solutions available today, so call 1-800-554-4166, or visit rekalltech.com to learn how to optimize your remote business.

Most law firms do not heavily invest or even think about their web presence. A majority of firms simply want a barebones website and whether their site helps them get business is an afterthought; in fact, many go with the cheapest website security and hosting plan that’s available. But what firms don’t understand is that in more cases than not, if you’re using a subpar website hosting service, your website will not only lack basic security features (such as a built-in firewall), but it will also share the same domain name as your firm’s email. This is an extremely important detail that can actually put your law firm under a tremendous amount of risk. But what’s a domain name, you say? Well, a domain name is simply what comes after the ‘@’ in an email address, and what comes after ‘www.’ but before ‘.com’ in a website address. So, for example, if you work at ABCLaw, your website would be www.abclaw.com and your email would be john@abclaw.com; in both cases, ‘abclaw’ would be your domain name. While this may seem innocuous on the surface, let’s use a real-life example to examine the serious drawbacks of having your website and email share the same domain name.

Like most firms, one of our clients had a website set up without any security or firewall built into it. Unsurprisingly, their website was soon hacked. As a result, their reputation, and more importantly, the reputation of their domain, had completely diminished on the Internet (and is continuing to get worse day by day). In fact, their reputation declined so much that the firm, whose website and email share the same domain name, stopped being able to receive emails entirely. Their domain was blacklisted by authorities on the Internet known as ‘houses’. These authorities manage spam and domain policy for the world’s top email service providers like Google (Gmail) and Microsoft (Outlook), and if your domain is blacklisted, it tells email servers that your emails are not legitimate and marks them as spam. The main takeaway from this scenario is that your website’s security and your firm’s ability to function are inherently linked, and once your domain is blacklisted, it is extremely hard to get it delisted. This can easily cripple your firm’s productivity and ruin its reputation permanently.

The staff at your firm should also be wary of sending out mass solicitation (sales, marketing) emails directly from their firm email address. If enough people mark their emails as spam, your domain will get blacklisted. Fortunately, email marketing services such as Robly or MailChimp can be used to send out such emails without risking the reputation of your firm. Additionally, website domain providers such as GoDaddy make the process of obtaining a new website domain quick and easy; the cost is usually minimal, too. All things considered, there really isn’t any excuse for your firm not to have a secure website with a unique domain name. As cybersecurity incidents continue to plague the legal industry, law firms should adopt best emailing practices alongside strict website security standards. Your firm’s entire reputation is on the line.

With ABA, HIPAA, and other compliance standards looming over law firms, it’s no question that the ethics behind how firms store their client data are extremely important. Although law firms store client data, the data itself is owned by the client, and if a firm’s client wants to switch to a new attorney, the firm has to transfer over all of their client data to the other counsel. As a result, law firms take on both the liability and responsibility that comes with protecting and storing said data, resulting in the question of whether hosting data on the cloud versus using in-office servers is ethical. Traditionally, lawyers spend a lot of money on technologies that protect their client data, however, this spending is often paired with a low level of technological understanding. So, even though firms shell out the cash in data security, they often may only have a data backup and an antivirus in place as safeguards, which is not enough in today’s technological climate.

In fact, Rekall Technologies has found that the data backups that firms utilize are often cheap and only backup your data for a short period of time. Additionally, many firms have never actually had to restore their data, and resultingly, do not know how long the process takes or if it even works. And this is all before we even look into the massive risks and drawbacks that come when firms use servers inside their office to store their data. Many firms use servers and don’t even know if the server itself is still under warranty or if it is going to go down. And because servers are housed in offices that often have questionable security (usually 1-2 locked doors serve as the only layer of protection between anyone and your server), firms are really putting their info security at a major risk.

So that brings us to the question of if office servers are so risky and outdated for data security purposes, what about the storing data on the cloud? Is that any less risky? What about the ethics behind this method of storage? It is prudent to note that protecting your data via the cloud is an infinitely safer method than using in-house servers, and the actual switch to the cloud itself is simple and easy, too. When you switch to a cloud provider such as Rekall Technologies, your data is managed by a company that manages other companies just like yours:  your firm is assigned a dedicated onboarding specialist that migrates your data to the cloud seamlessly, and every user in your firm receives their own antivirus software, data backups, and gateway and enterprise level security. Not only do we implement these procedures, we also routinely monitor and test them to make sure they are working properly.

We’ve talked a lot about in-house servers, so how are cloud-based servers different?  Well for one, your data is stored in two separate Tier III data facilities (based in New Jersey & Ohio) that feature military-grade security and 24/7 on-premise monitoring. Additionally, Rekall has invested $750,000 into our cloud platform, allowing your firm to have the best-in-class data protection, security, and encryption. This is in stark contrast to the protection measures put in place by the average law firm that merely gets a server and a firewall for their office. Simply put, not only is the cloud a more ethical way of storing and managing client data, it also infinitely lowers the risk that your firm takes on with every new client that you attain. It is certainly up to attorneys’ discretion as to how they want to protect their firm, but we’d say the decision is a no-brainer. Learn more about how a private cloud solution can benefit your firm here.

Electronic discovery, or eDiscovery, is a process that most modern-day lawyers are familiar with. Whether you have an upcoming court case or are undergoing an internal security audit at your firm, going through the eDiscovery process can be a hassle if you don’t have the right tools; combing through, labeling, and categorizing a plethora of emails, phone calls, and other electronic records can be painstaking. Usually, the eDiscovery process has lawyers search their firm’s records through filters based around the date, person, or email address associated with the record.  However, there are several tools out there that actually offer more robust, time saving, and expansive filtering options and improve overall search functionality. In fact, one of these tools actually comes free with Microsoft Office 365.

Office 365’s eDiscovery platform provides you with deeper, more intuitive search functionality. Rather than just being able to search via the aforementioned filters, you can also search by specific terms, email domains, keywords, to and from dates, and more. Additionally, Office 365 conveniently shows you the results of your search in a PST file, generating both a main folder and subfolders within that file, with each email address within your organization getting its own subfolder. The benefit to this is that is allows you to easily view every single piece of correspondence at your firm, along with signatures, dates, etc. The file even comes with an additional Excel file that acts as a ‘legend’, helping you navigate the PST file’s folders and subfolders and acting as a guide to find anything that you need. This is particularly useful for, for example, figuring out specifically who at your firm corresponded with a certain client within a specific date range. Additionally, this can also be effective for HR purposes; if there is a disciplinary situation at your firm, you can use this system to find the specific email correspondence associated with that incident in order to gather more details about the situation.

If you’re looking for an even more powerful eDiscovery platform, Logikcull may be the solution for you. Although it isn’t free like Office 365, it comes with customer support, including instant live chat support. Additionally, Logikcull has advanced search features that are simply not available in free platforms like Office 365. For example, it allows you to look for the term ‘restaurant’ but not the name ‘Steve’; in Office 365, you’d have to search all these terms one-by-one and break down the results yourself. Another benefit in using Logikcull is that the platform is mainly geared towards legal and case work, while Office 365 is mainly for general inquiries and HR purposes. In fact, Logikcull actually exports your results in a format that is commonly used for case work and legal proceedings, and it even automatically documents every email or electronic record with a ‘Document ID’ while also giving you a similar folder, subfolder, and ‘legend’ file just like Office 365. This format, alongside ‘Document ID’, is much more readily accepted in case work and trials.

Here at Rekall Technologies, we always recommend our clients to try Office 365 first (if there isn’t a big case on the line!), but if you have a case where your costs are covered, we’d definitely recommend Logikcull or even a company called CloudNine. Regardless of which platform you choose, be sure to check out our article on the benefits of having a VoIP phone system. Between utilizing a system that records all phone calls and having a robust email archiving solution, your firm will be ready for even the most meticulous eDiscovery proceedings.

There’s never been a better time to look at your firm’s technology infrastructure. If you’re working from home and calling into your voicemail to listen your messages and missed calls, it’s time to consider a VoIP phone system. A Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system allows you to essentially bring your office phone with you. Whether it’s using an app on your cell phone or having an office phone dual ring in your home office, the convenience is second to none.

Cost Effective Solution

Most VoIP phone systems that are out on the market today are usually priced at a modest $20-25 per month per user, and come with a wealth of immensely useful features that go beyond basic calling, forwarding, and voicemail functionality. With today’s ever-changing legal landscape, it’s more important than ever for your staff to stay connected.

Bring your Phone Anywhere

Most VoIP systems come with a dial by name directory, an automated attendant (think digital receptionist), and automated call forwarding to users’ personal phones. A majority also offer applications on Apple, Android, and desktop computers that turn your personal device into your work phone, too. This liberates your staff from being tied down to a single physical location (e.g. office phone), and it can even eliminate the need to purchase costly headsets that are often associated with outdated phone systems. With VoIP, you can use Bluetooth headsets, or even the Bluetooth in your car to take calls.

No More Calling in for Voicemail

As mentioned previously, VoIP systems go far beyond standard calling, forwarding, and voicemail features. In fact, a wide majority offer audio and speech-to-text voicemail transcription alongside automated email alerts on all your devices when you receive a new message, going far beyond what traditional phone systems are capable of. When it comes to calling capabilities, VoIP enables calling, forwarding, transferring, and conferencing calling and bridging from any device. You can even set up call groups if you want your firm to still have a personal touch when it comes to customer service, even if you don’t have a dedicated receptionist. For example, you can have a group of 3 paralegals set up to answer the phone, and the VoIP phone system rotates and distributes calls evenly among the group.

Customizable Services Based upon your Needs

One of the major add-on services that our clients always rave about is call recording. This feature not only records every call in your firm, but it also enables you to listen to calls live as they go, allowing you to train new hires and to maintain the good standard of customer service that your clients are used to. Some other add-ons particularly useful for law firms include anti-spam services that auto-screen every incoming call, the ability to sync your phone with Microsoft Outlook, preconfigured/customizable holiday voice recordings, shared voicemail inboxes, and even the ability to assign hidden extensions or direct numbers to staff that bypass the receptionist. No matter which VoIP provider you choose, installation should be covered by the provider, include no up-front cost, and only take a few hours. And while at Rekall Technicians are well-versed in legal technologies and we know what successful law firms are doing when it comes to phone system integration, having assisted with hundreds of integrations for our clients. If you’re interested in learning more about a VoIP phone system for your firm, we urge you to reach out.

Odds are that you’ve heard about the cloud or know about cloud computing, but do you know the different types of cloud solutions that are available for law firms? The cloud comes in various models, ranging from public options such as AWS, to private ones like Rekall’s; hybrid solutions exist, too. To keep things simple, we’re going to be focusing on 2 different cloud models that are most applicable and useful for law firms. Moving to a cloud based solution allows you to benefit from a robust solution that modernizes your firm while simultaneously taking out the headaches of a traditional IT set up.

 

A Public/Hybrid cloud is ideal for firms with 1-10 users that have not invested in a dedicated document management system for their staff. Utilizing Microsoft’s Office 365 system alongside Rekall’s cloud infrastructure, this configuration offers your firm dedicated document storage, email security, and intra-office chat and calling via Microsoft Teams. Additionally, your entire staff receives 5 copies of Microsoft Office licensing per user, enabling each user to access all of their documents and applications across multiple devices for maximum work flexibility.  Further, this type of cloud is optimal for firms that use 1-2 legal applications, such as PCLaw or Time Matters. If your firm doesn’t want to host their own software locally as well as deal with application troubleshooting and support themselves, Rekall’s Private Cloud service features dedicated application storage, hosting, and technical support.

 

A Private, more comprehensive cloud model comes in the form of a hosted remote desktop configuration. With this setup, all of your firm’s legal applications, application data, and documents are hosted fully in the cloud, as opposed to the first cloud model which uses a combination of the cloud and Office 365 for hosting. Additionally, every user receives a fully configured cloud desktop, full email and cloud security, comprehensive IT support (including application troubleshooting), as well as enterprise firewall security. No matter which cloud model sounds the most appealing to you, Rekall can help get you started. Our technicians have a decade of experience tailoring cloud solutions for all types of law firms, no matter what size they are or what applications they use. Learn more about our onboarding process here.

As legal professionals continue to work from home, many are juggling their own workload while also having to teach their children as schools are offering virtual learning for the upcoming semesters. In this current climate, we’re seeing a massive societal shift towards remote work as the “new normal”. Now is the optimal time for law firms to both implement a long-term remote work solution for their employees and to embrace a more modern way of operating within today’s legal landscape. It’s important for law firms to use this time and evaluate whether their employees, IT setup, and operation procedures are suited to work from home.

A firm’s capacity to work remotely is inherently linked to what kind of technology it utilizes. Traditionally, firms have in-house servers, personal computers, antiquated phone systems, and more. These setups may seem cost effective at first, but they tie firms down to a fixed location, forcing them to constantly shell out money on hardware upgrades and rental costs. Such configurations also offer little flexibility to employees, especially if they are working from home full-time. On the other hand, eliminating your firm’s traditional setup in favor of the cloud offers numerous, tangible benefits, especially in today’s more streamlined and interconnected world.

Hosting your law firm on the cloud not only empowers your legal and administrative staff to work with complete freedom and flexibility, but it also gives your firm financial freedom by reducing hardware and property rental costs significantly. With the cloud allowing your staff to work on any device, from anywhere, and at any time, they can remain productive and operate efficiently, regardless if they are in the office or working from home. In fact, after using Rekall Private Cloud, some of our clients have actually made the transition to remote work permanent. With 99.99% uptime, our cloud solution gives firms a flexible, robust, and dependable platform, enabling them to focus on their clients and excel, no matter the circumstance.

Rekall is more than just your standard IT/Cloud company. As Legal Technology Consultants, Rekall is here to assist in transitioning to the cloud, purchasing hardware, consulting on new legal applications, and integrating voIP phone systems all while having expert technicians to help every step of the way.

Is your firm ready to embrace a more modern way of working? We can help. Learn more here or contact us down below!

If you’re a law firm in 2020, chances are your firm is either working from the office fully, or working from home in some manner. Today, firms must consider the following… are your employees utilizing the best possible tools and practices to empower them to perform at their best? Every law firm needs technology essentials that drive productivity and enable staff to stay on track with day to day tasks. Let’s take an in-depth look into some of the tools that our successful firms are using to stay connected while working remotely.

 

Microsoft Teams – Interoffice Chat & Video Conferencing

Your team wouldn’t be able to accomplish much without a dependable, real-time method of communicating quickly and efficiently. This is what Microsoft Teams does best. Featuring text and video chat, and support for video conferencing between firm staff on your mobile device, PC or Mac. Teams is what our law firms use for daily meetings, and quick questions. Being able to see people and talk face to face, even virtually increases attitude and decreases the loneliness (for some) that comes with working from home. The best part is, if you have an Office 365 subscription, chances are you already have Microsoft Teams!

 

Vonage Business – A Versatile Phone System

When it comes to communication, the phone is king. In light of working from home, the largest problem our law firms faced was not the ability to work as they were on the cloud. It was the ability to communicate via phone, receive messages and check voicemail. Top phone systems of today do not bind you to the office. Vonage Business offers business class VOIP service to your law firm at affordable rates with amazing features. With the mobile app, answer, forward, and park calls as you wish. Everyone receives a private direct phone number, call extensions, transcribed voicemail to email, call groups, and a dial by name directory as standard. In addition add-on services include call recording and call monitoring which is useful for training. Bets of all, you can utilize the system anywhere and there is no installation of any hardware in your office. A versatile phone system will not break the bank and will keep your employees connected no matter where they are.

 

Cloud Services – Work Together while Apart

Successful firms are utilizing the cloud in some capacity these days. With working from home firms need a central point of data access so staff can view the resources that they need to do their work, productivity will go downhill quick. Instead, make sure that your firm is outfitted with cloud service that centralize your firm’s data and devices, allowing your staff to access firm docs, applications, print, scan, and email from home. And with Rekall Private Cloud’s military-grade data encryption, you’ll be able to do all of this while staying ABA and HIPAA compliant.

 

Overall, by combining tech essentials with good management and communication practices, your firm will navigate the world of remote work that much easier, and you’ll be prepared to focus on what truly matters: serving your clients.

While most legal staff aren’t expected to be extremely tech savvy, there are certain cybersecurity fundamentals that all lawyers should have an understanding of. From being able to spot an email phishing scam to knowing how to set up a strong password, grasping even the basics can help your law firm stay safe against data breaches.

One basic cybersecurity tip is knowing what malware is, how it operates, and the different types of malware that are out there. And if you work at a law firm, malware is definitely targeting you. Between the courts, prosecutor’s offices, and many other legal organizations, law firms top the list when it comes to being victim of a ransomware attack, with 61.36% of attacks on the legal industry targeting firms specifically. Firms of any size and scale can be victims, too. In fact, just a few months ago, Manhattan-based entertainment law firm Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks was the subject of a ransomware attack that saw 756 gigabytes of celebrity data stolen off their network. But ransomware is not the only threat out there. In fact, there are a plethora of security threats that can bring your firm to a standstill if your firm isn’t proactive enough about their cybersecurity.

An Explanation of Malware

Malware is essentially malicious software that is written with the aim of damaging computing devices.  Examples of malware include ransomware, spyware, trojans and viruses. Most malware is developed with the intent of being sold on the Dark Web or by being spread rapidly between computer systems. However, some are created for other reasons: as a vehicle for protest, as a digital weapon for political purposes, or as a means of testing an organization’s cybersecurity system.

Malware in Its Many Forms

Viruses are actually pretty common.  Similar to traditional viruses that harm the human body, the digital variety latches onto otherwise-clean files and infects them.  Unfortunately, viruses can spread uncontrollably, compromising the core functionality of the system, corrupting files or even outright erasing files.  The typical virus manifests itself in the form of an executable file, also known as an .exe.

Another type of malware is Adware, an aggressive form of advertising software that sabotages systems to serve up intrusive and malicious advertisements and popups. Adware can be incredibly frustrating and downright annoying to deal with, but they are often not as harmful as other types of malware.

Additionally, there are also Botnets, which are best described as entire networks of compromised computers.  These networks are designed to function in unison while being controlled by an attacker.

Trojans, on the other hand, are a type of malware that conceals itself as supposedly legitimate software or is concealed within seemingly legitimate software that has actually been compromised.  Trojans act in a secretive manner, generating back door entrances into systems and networks to permit other malware to enter.

Worms are especially problematic in that they infect full networks of devices, be it across the web or locally.  Worms wreak havoc with the use of network interfaces.  Sadly, once a single machine is infected, it is likely to spread the infection to additional machines at your law firm.

Stay Protected

No matter which form of malware you are dealing with, it’s important to remain vigilant and be proactive about your firm’s cybersecurity. Question everything that you interact with while browsing the Web, don’t open suspicious email links or attachments, and always keep your machine’s operating system up to date. By following just a few basic security guidelines, your firm will be that much safer against crippling cybersecurity attacks and data breaches.

Still worried about your readiness to deal with a data breach or malware? We can help. Rekall safeguards over 150 law firms nationwide. Learn more about how we can protect your law firm here.