Bench & Bar

NOV 2013

The Bench & Bar magazine is published to provide members of the KBA with information that will increase their knowledge of the law, improve the practice of law, and assist in improving the quality of legal services for the citizenry.

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SHOP TALK Image provided by the American Bar Association A PLACE TO BEGIN FOR ADVISING ON CLOUD COMPUTING: THOMAS SHAW'S Cloud Computing for Lawyers and Executives: A Global Approach, 2ND ED., ABA PUBLISHING The "cloud" of internetworked computing enfolds us. It is more and more the place where our clients conduct their business and personal lives. Where they go, we, their counselors, must follow. Thomas Shaw's Cloud Computing for Lawyers and Executives: A Global Approach 2nd Ed., offers a concise summary of the issues we may face in offering good counsel on the cloud. Shaw's analysis moves into security and privacy concerns. Once a client begins using cloud services, they surrender significant control over security and privacy even where the user agreement leaves the risk with the client. He discusses the risks and responses for clients using the cloud, including breach notification obligations, insurance protection and forensic discovery. Wrapped around these issues are the contractual obligations of the cloud service provider and the client. The contracts – called Service Level Agreements, or SLAs – will, at the least, define areas of concern for the client with a particular provider. As implied from the legal discussion, contract concerns begin with choice of law and venue and move through whose obligation it is to assure the security, integrity, privacy and availability of data. Shaw's discussion includes less obvious contract provisions, such as ongoing compliance audits for information assurance, duties for breach notification and discovery/warrant responses, subcontractor management and dominion over client data in the event of disasters or cloud service provider bankruptcy. Cloud Computing for Lawyers closes with practical application of this for lawyers, guidance for all lawyers even if their clients don't realize they've any cloud involvement By: Michael Losavio at all. (But, yes, I do have a FaceBook/Google+/Instagram account.) Shaw covers how a client should assess itself in using the advice of counsel. E-discovery issues in the cloud, which may be needed even in a divorce where one party uses Google's services, are addressed. And he ends with a discussion of how a lawyer may effectively and ethically use cloud services, which, in turn, can inform that lawyer's advice to his clients, individuals and businesses, as they move into this iteration of computing services. Cloud Computing for Lawyers is a very useful introduction to a complex area of human activity, one that involves new, sometimes non-intuitive technologies, new ways of human interaction and laws both familiar and unfamiliar to a traditional lawyer. Shaw has built an orderly synthesis of the many issues with the cloud and cloud services that lets the reader prepare for competent and thorough client representation. Thomas Shaw, Cloud Computing for Lawyers and Executives: A Global Approach, 2nd Ed., Chicago, Illinois, ABA Publishing, 2013 (ISBN: 978-1-61438-952-1) Cloud Computing for Lawyers first defines the key terms and services of cloud computing, giving the reader a sense of the technology and the terminology involved. He moves into a review of the laws applicable to cloud services, from U.S. statutes to a global perspective on the law of the European Union, Asia and the Americas. A lawyer may contend with the laws of several states and nations when advising a client, as cloud services span most boundaries. 23 Clients may not realize this, simply shopping for the services with the best price and reputation for reliability. But the relative lack of regulation on information that prevails in Kentucky and most of the United States changes quickly as a client provides services to people in more regulated states and countries. For example, data exchanges involving European Union (EU) countries are subject to strict regulation and privacy controls with penalties, even if the client does not realize he or she is violating any laws or is working with EU customers. B&B; • 11.13

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