On Sui Generis, a New York law blog, Nicole Black discusses a recent ruling in Oregon regarding hosted email and the serving of a legal warrant:
“In a decision issued last week by the U.S. District Court for District of Oregon, in In re U.S., Nos. 08-9131-MC, 08-9147- MC, the government argued successfully that it need not notify the account holder regarding a warrant served on the ISP holder of the e-mail account.”
While I wouldn’t equate hosted email with cloud computing, Black then expands the conversation to include cloud computing concerns of lawyers:
“Cloud computing providers are adapting quickly to and responding to the concerns raised by lawyers. As a result, lawyers are becoming increasingly comfortable with the concept of cloud computing. In fact, according to the 2009 Am Law Tech Survey, 84 percent of responding law firms already use SaaS (Software as a Service), a form of cloud computing, in some capacity.
As cloud computing becomes more prevalent in the legal field, more lawyers will understand the importance of carefully negotiating their contracts with the services providers to ensure that, for example, they are notified if a warrant relating to their data is served.
Mark my words: Cloud computing is the wave of the future, and encrypted communication is one of the keys to putting attorney’s minds at ease regarding an emerging technology. Astute providers will incorporate encrypted communication into their platforms, and smart lawyers will learn about and use the emerging technology in their practice.”
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Two points of interest:
1. That despite the known risks, and the natural risk aversion of lawyers, legal practices are adopting SaaS.
2. The inclusion of “warrant notification” in service provider contracts. This point is relevant for any consumer of a cloud computing environment service, either “of the cloud” or “on the cloud”.
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