BytesFacebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – there's no escaping the infiltration of social media in the workplace. Legal Week's IT roundtable focused on its use by employees, the data risks involved and how it can be used to a firm's advantage

Social media, in all its variant forms, is very much part of everyday life now, and law firms would be best advised to accept that and move on. This was the message delivered by Debra Logan (pictured), senior vice president of research at Gartner, to the Legal Week Intelligence annual roundtable for IT directors held in association with Bytes Technology.

"There is no point in not recognising the extent to which social media is a growing part of people's working lives. If people are working 10 or 12 hours a day you have to expect they will be conducting their social lives at the same time," said Logan.

Some of the chief information officer (CIO) community felt that although use of social media was part of a lawyer's life, they could keep their personal separate from their professional lives. As Paul White from Linklaters pointed out: "Lawyers are using social media but they are able to compartmentalise it and not let it stray into their professional lives. They keep the two very separate."

Internet policy

Generally, every company has a policy document governing employee usage of the internet, a policy which now encompasses use of social media. In the world of financial services, employers often take a dim view of any use at all because of their very risk-averse stance on data security. As Addleshaw Goddard's Peter Thompson pointed out: "A lot of our policy on social media is driven by best practice and the requirements of our financial services clients, many of whom ban social media as a matter of course."

Having a clear communicated policy on social media is one thing, but organising training and explaining the implications of breaching that policy can be a very different thing.

As with a lot of employment issues inside law firms, being able to point to the detailed consequences of a breach of policy is difficult, as any settlement or termination of employment would normally be subject to confidentiality provisions.

Emphasising the theoretical implications of a breach in a training environment also depends on being able to gather together enough people to train.

As Dundas & Wilson's Richard Elson explained: "We recognised that lawyers won't always respond enthusiastically to an invitation to information security training." Dundas has been a bit more creative in its approach to the education process, producing a compulsory e-learning quiz for all staff.

All law firms monitor staff internet usage and recent years has seen a running battle as employees try to push the boundaries of what they can access at what time while CIOs struggle with their bandwidth being dominated by personal internet traffic, both for retail and social media sites.

A lot of law firms still bar the use of Facebook and other related social networking sites – some for the whole day, with some allowing access at lunchtime. Other firms and corporate entities have embraced the technology to such an extent that they are running their own Facebook pages. The issue of policy and enforcement is closely linked to law firms' constant fear of data security.

According to Logan: "There is a problem, obviously, with not owning the data and the data essentially sitting inside a consumer rather than a business environment – on Facebook's server rather than the firm's own server." One potential solution would to outsource the whole process to a specialist provider who would be able to provide a higher level of security than a law firm network.

Once a law firm has embraced social media technology fully, it is possible that it could be used as a business development tool as well as a communication tool.

At least one CIO reported a successful business win as a result of her firm's social media usage. Janet Day at Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) said: "Social media is something we are all interested in at BLP. It can, and has already, led to business development opportunities."

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Attendees

Peter Thompson, Addleshaw Goddard
Gareth Ash, Allen & Overy
Bruna Pellicci, Ashurst
Janet Day, Berwin Leighton Paisner
Lee Hanley, Charles Russell
Alistair Johnson, Clifford Chance
Richard Elson, Dundas & Wilson
Paul White, Linklaters
Andrew Powell, Nabarro
Brian Smith, SJ Berwin
Debra Logan, Gartner Research
Chris Forte, Gartner Research
Jay Babiker, Bytes Technology
Dannii Whinder, Bytes Technology
Paul Birk, Legal Week Intelligence
Des Cahill, Legal Week Intelligence