IMHO it is not best practice to base your office in the cloud!

I think that online cloud backup and access has really revolutionized how attorneys and the world work! In addition to be able to access your office files anywhere, the security of having additional backups constantly updated and offsite provides an extra layer of relief. Heavens forbid the office catches on fire or someone steals your computer! But basing and running your firm from the cloud is IMHO a big mistake.

Earlier this month, Microsoft 365, the online office suite, had an outage issue. As Tamal Nandi of Mint reports, “The company said that it was “investigating an issue with accessing Outlook on the web" in a Twitter thread posted on its Microsoft 365 Status account — and added that a “downstream impact" was also identified for Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. Microsoft 365 Status later said it had reverted an update and saw an improvement in service — soon confirming recovery for impacted services.” This gives me no ease of mind in using this product. Your work is hosted on the cloud; not on your computer. So, when the host “misplaces” or “losses” your information, it will sync and remove the information from your computer. And then you’re SOL!

Nobody wants to be discover their e-mail has vanished!

I believe I may have been a victim of this as I use 365. I was understandably freaked when my inbox had zero e-mails! Note, I only use Outlook for the blog (not the firm and I’m looking for something else for the blog) and I don’t use OneDrive for any of my projects. As a lawyer, can you imagine your inbox emails just “disappearing?” Lawyers have a strong fear of missing out – this is understandable as if you miss an urgent client e-mail or a court notice that you fail to follow up on, it could be your job and possibly your law license.

Granted, it appears that this has only affected thousands maybe tens of thousands out of Microsoft’s million-plus users. But apparently, this has been a recurring theme for at least this year. And solo and small firm practitioners certainly don’t want to find themselves as being one of the lucky "thousands” of Microsoft users without their inbox – temporarily or permanently.

I don’t know how to reverse backup from the cloud. But by using my computer as the main host of my work, I know I can easily make multiple backups. My suggestion is to look carefully at the cloud CRM you are using and make sure that you have your “office” based on your computer versus their “cloud” host. PS: It is one of a few reasons why I use Daylite as my CRM.

MTC.

Happy Lawyering!!!

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