In the last month, lawyers have seen (and some have experienced, including me) the impact on an organization when its computer systems go down for one reason or another. Southwest Airlines was majorly screwed last month:  A weather system caused delays and cancellations on airlines across the U.S. Meanwhile, SAs computer systems and processes were not modern enough to deal with a magnitude of an event like that (as, in my opinion, it should have learned after the 2007 Valentine’s Day Massacre at Jet Blue). It caused considerable chaos to its financials, employees, and customers.

Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration's mission-critical Notification of Aircraft Missions (NOTAM) computer system suffered a massive failure. According to NBCNEWS.com, "A corrupted file affected both [NOTAM's] primary and the backup systems..." The NOTAM provides crucial information that pilots need prior to taking off; basically, without it, pilots cannot take off. This failure of the system caused delayed flights throughout the United States. Lawyers may take lessons from these two simultaneous, but unrelated computer crashes.

First, BACKUP -- BACKUP -- BACKUP your computer systems. I discussed in this prior post why you should backup and the need for redundancy in your backups. When you lose access to your data or the data is corrupted, your work stalls potentially putting you at risk of not meeting deadlines.  Meanwhile through my internet backups on Backblaze and Dropbox along with my local Time Machine, I can get earlier versions of data files should a virus corrupt the most recent version.

I encourage lawyers, particularly solo attorneys, who might not consider this since they are typically the sole staff member in their office, have another computer concurrently running the same software with a nearly identical database from their office. You should not need to buy that same expensive computer you use daily. But a potentially cheaper computer that is reliable, has enough horsepower that you can simultaneously work with it, and can double as your primary computer in case of emergency should suffice. 

I have a Mac Studio for my main computer. I use a MacBook Pro for traveling or when I am at the local coffee shop (I don't like to skimp on power or screen space [it's the 16" model] when I'm out of the office). And I also have a Mac mini running in the background.  All three computers run about the same programs and have the same databases, i.e., client files. The laptop (and my cell phone with data tethering) comes in handy if there is a power outage.  My assistant has access to the mini (the mini also runs a few automation programs in the background [like Hazel]). So if my Studio becomes unusable, I have two other computers to resume my work quickly.

Last, you have to keep your tech reasonably current. Operating systems like Windows OS, Apple OS/iOS, Android iOS, among others, have versions of their programs that are discontinued or are no longer supported. The same is true of the software programs you regularly use, e.g., Microsoft Word, your web browsers, Mail, etc. The same can also be said about your hardware!

You want your tech up-to-date.  Ideally, "current" tech is immune to corruption and failure from previous (outdated) versions.  Antiquated software and hardware may be more susceptible to known cyberattacks. Also, if your tech crashes or corrupts your data, you do not have the vendor support to get it fixed. Knowing this, it seems unfathomable for governments and private companies to be using technologies that are potentially decades old and crashed as they did these past several weeks.  The same can be said about attorneys using outdated software just several years old.

Lawyers can learn from this! SA is probably going to have to answer to the FAA. And FAA will likely have to answer to Congress. The lesson is that lawyers should not be using outdated technology: Because if that fails, you are probably going to have to answer to your clients, judges, and bar associations. It is simply not worth the risk.

MTC.