It's the season of gratitude and celebration, gratitude and celebration for getting through all this so far. (You know what "this" is!) Like a lot of you, I am still working remotely. I miss my walk to work, the office kibbitzing, lunches, the in-person bar committee meetings. But the time saved commuting and communing has given me the opportunity to slow down a bit and observe some trends in my practice. One of these trends reflects a phrase that I often find myself repeating: "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." So this year, my annual "New Year's Resolutions" column is focused on prevention, rather than curing. I realize it's a bit early for New Years—but it's never too soon to start fresh!

Along with the benefits of remote work are the technology risks that come with it. Comment 8 to Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1, describes familiarity with "the benefits and risks of relevant technology" as a component of maintaining the "requisite knowledge and skill" to comply with your duty of competency. In today's world, that now means preventing cyberattacks. Cyberattacks are becoming prevalent for big and small firms alike, but you can take steps to prevent them. The most important step is training. Train your staff on the prevalence of phishing emails and the danger of opening pdfs and clicking on links. Also, make sure that every attorney with a laptop can connect to wireless through VPN security. Just weeks ago, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided Commonwealth v. Dunkins, 2021 Pa. LEXIS 3994, *14, which held that a student who consents to the terms of use of the Moravian College WiFi network "cannot … have any expectation of privacy with regard to any data … created or stored on computers within or connected to the institution's network." How this holding can be extended to a lawyer's use of WiFi at a coffeeshop, on a train, or in another firm's conference room, is now in question. Connecting through VPN software is an easy and practical answer to avoiding this very consequential risk.