BYOD — “Bring Your Own Device” — is quickly becoming a strong buzzword in the legal technology community. At Law Technology News, we’ve been covering the trend intensely. It was a key topic when we launched our redesigned magazine in February 2011, with Alan Cohen’s “Resistance is Futile” cover story surveying how our profession (not exactly known for being first adopters of any technology) was beginning to adapt to the demands of lawyers who insisted on bringing their iProducts to work.
What a difference a year makes. In our February 2012 issue, Doug Caddell, the former CIO of Foley & Lardner, drew a line in the sand in his essay, “Yes, Please,” saying CIOs, not lawyers, were the ones blocking BYOD. “Are you a leader in moving your firm ahead, or are you holding the firm back from the change that firm leaders desperately want and need?” he asked. He was not the first to suggest that the acronym CIO might now stand for “Career Is Over.” Many IT directors, he says, “are out of touch with real business needs of law firms.”
