From the ABA Section of Litigation 2013 Annual Conference
Conclusion:
“The message of these ethics opinions is clear: lawyers and law firms can engage third-party vendors in the cloud to store confidential information but they must do so competently with adequate supervision and implement reasonable steps to protect the confidentiality of the data. When one does business in the cloud, not every threat to confidentiality may be visible. Hence, lawyers must also stay abreast of changes in technology. As the ethics opinions discussed in this paper demonstrate, there are a number of security, data access, and data ownership and transfer issues that must be confronted by lawyers who wish to use cloud-computing services for data access and storage. Prudent lawyers will evaluate their current vulnerability to breaches of data security and the risk of data loss. They will then proceed cautiously and with expert help before they move away from existing forms of electronic data storage that do not present the array of cloud computing concerns outlined by the ABA 20/20 Commission or the Pennsylvania State Bar Ethics Committee.”
Model Rules: 1.1, 1.4, 1.6, 1.15, 1.16, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3
Referenced Authority:
- ABA Comm. On Ethics and Prof’l Responsibility, Formal Op. 08-451
- Oregon Bar Ethics Opinion 2011-188
- Pennsylvania Formal Opinion 2011-200
- North Carolina 2011 Formal Opinion 6
- New York State Bar Ethics Opinion 842
- Alabama Ethics Opinion 2010-02
- Iowa Bar Ethics Opinion 11-01
- Vermont Ethics Opinion 2010-6
- Massachusetts Bar Ethics Opinion 12-03
- New Hampshire Ethics Committee Advisory Opinion #2012-13/4
- Florida Bar Proposed Advisory Opinion 12-3
- Florida Bar Opinion 06-01
- California Formal Opinion 2010-179
- Illinois State Bar Association Advisory Opinion 10-01
- Arizona Ethics Opinion 09-04
- New Jersey Ethics Opinion 701
- Maine Ethics Opinion 194 (June 20, 2008)
- Nevada Bar Ethics Opinion No. 33 (Feb. 9, 2006)
The full text is available at http://www.americanbar.org…