Remote working—and the pains many firms had in making that transition—has been headline news for most of 2020. While it's particularly in focus right now, this shift toward a more mobile legal workforce has been happening for some time. With the urgency of the shift to remote work hopefully somewhat over, it might be time for law firms and their IT professionals to more holistically address the implications of this move to mobile. It's also important to recognize that not all of these changes are negative.

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Shifting to a Mobile-First Strategy

Perhaps the biggest impact of mobile has been its effect on how and where attorneys and staff now get their work done. Not being tethered to office desktops means people are accessing a firm's systems—and its data—from far more locations than ever. This raises a whole host of issues, particularly with respect to providing access as well as maintaining security.

People also expect different experiences from their mobile devices as opposed to traditional desktop computers. Historically, we've all been conditioned to be patient with our desktop computers if they take a bit longer to load a website or shift to another application. Our patience isn't limitless, but there is a bit of leeway that we unconsciously allow for traditional computers.