Kennedy Mighell PodcastTom and I have released two more episodes of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast. In one, we take a fresh look at encryption and how lawyers do and don’t use it and whether that will change in light of the stories about the NSA in the news. In the other, we look at the recent trend of software vendors moving away from traditional software licensing approaches to subscription models. I also wanted to recommend that you visit the Legal Talk Network site and see how many of the old LTN podcasts have now relaunched and how many great podcast episodes are now becoming available on a regular basis.

Here are the show descriptions:

#104 – In Light of NSA Surveillance, Should Lawyers Encrypt? [LTN] [LTRC]

In this edition of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell discuss encryption. The recent news coverage of the NSA surveillance has everyone talking about who can access their data, and this is especially relevant to practicing attorneys, who have to consider both their own data as well as that of their clients. According to your hosts, 30% of lawyers are using encryption to secure files and only 24% are using it to send email. This poses the question: Has the time for lawyers using encryption arrived? The second segment of the show will talk about Tom’s switch from the iPhone to the Android smartphone. Learn how and why he made the decision to make the change and his review, so far.

We thought it was a good time, in light of recent news events, to revisit the subject of encryption. Lawyers have struggled with the notion of encryption over the years for historical and practical reasons. We discuss a range of encryption questions and issues, both practical and theoretical. It’s difficult not to feel that lawyers have dropped the ball on encryption and given away an opportunity to be thought leaders on the topic. What do you think about that? We also offer some predictions for the future and I found myself being more optimistic about lawyers’ use of encryption than I had expected to be when we started the podcast. We also have some fun talking about Tom’s recent purchase of an Android phone and motivations for switching platforms.

#103 –
Keeping Up with the Cloud: Software, Social Media, and more.
[LTN] [Software by Subscription – LTRC]

What started as a way to backup our hard drives is moving to how we access, what feels like, everything on our computers. On this episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell will discuss the new trend of software by subscription. Instead of paying for an updated version of a new software product, companies are offering a monthly subscription which will immediately grant users access to the newest version via the cloud. Adobe and Microsoft are just two of the recent examples of vendors switching to this model. With so many lawyers and law firms using old versions of standard software, how will they react to this new system?
The second portion of the show will cover the new service Google Takeout, which provides an easy way to extract your data from online-Google apps like Google Reader, Google Circles, and more. Whether you know it or not, seems like everything is stored online nowadays. Tune in to The Kennedy Mighell Report to keep up with Internet technology and the cloud.

This episode grew out of a recent announcement about Adobe moving to a subscription model for its software and turned into a wide-ranging conversation about subscription models, traditional software licensing, the cloud, and much more. This trend will likely continue. We also continue our lamentations about the death of Google Reader (I’ve currently using Feedly as my RSS reader), but deal with the issue practically by focusing on the Google Takeout service for exporting and backing up your Google accounts. We also touch on other methods for backing up your social media accounts, something I discussed in a recent post on the Law Technology Today blog. By the way, you can read all of my posts to the Law Technology Today blog in one handy place.

Remember the podcast is now available at two places: the Legal Talk Network and the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center. And it’s available in iTunes, where you can subscribe and have new episodes appear in iTunes automatically when they are released. As always, if you have ideas for topics or questions for us to answer on the podcast, let us know.

Dennis Kennedy

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

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Facebook in One Hour for Lawyers, the new book from Allison Shields and me, is now available (iBook version here). Our previous book, LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers is also available and also can be downloaded as an iBook. Also still available, The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell.