The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) is a peer networking organization for people who work in the legal technology field, such as the people who work in law firm IT departments. This week, ILTA released the results of ILTA’s 2017 Technology Survey, which is based on survey responses fro 579 law firms (including mine).
Unlike the ABA Tech Survey, which indicates the percentage of lawyers using an iPhone and iPad, ILTA’s technology surveys have always just asked which operating system is supported at law firms. For many years now, virtually every law firm has had at least some attorneys using an iPhone or iPad, so these survey responses have not been particularly exciting to me for a while now. I started paying attention to this survey back in 2013, when 97% of all law firms had one or more iOS devices in use. That number increased slightly to 98% in 2014, and in 2015, 2017 and 2017 the percentage has held steady at 99%. Breaking down that number by firm size, the 2017 survey says that 98% of law firms with under 50 attorneys have iOS use, 99% of law firms with 50 to 149 attorneys have iOS use, and 100% of law firms with 150 or more attorneys have iOS use. Suffice it to say that, for many years now, virtually all law firms have supported iPhones and iPads.
Most law firms also support other smartphone devices, but for the most part that means Android nowadays. In 2017, 80% of law firms support Android devices, 25% support Blackberry OS devices, and 18% support Windows Mobile devices.
ILTA also asks law firms if they are using third-party systems for Mobile Device Management (MDM). Since 2012, there has been a slow-but-steady increase in use, from 34% in 2012 to 58% this year.
For those firms who are using MDM to manage their iPhones and other mobile devices, the five most popular vendors (in order) are Airwatch, MobileIron, IBM Fiberlink MaaS 360, Blackberry Work (formerly Good Technology) and Citrix XenMobile.
They survey also reports that most law firms (81%) provide some type of financial support for attorneys and others using smartphones, but the amount varies widely among law firms, and 45% of law firms do not pay anything at all towards the cost of the smartphone itself. A different question on the survey shows similar results: 56% of law firms do not buy smartphones for attorneys, 37% do, and 7% have some other response. I would have guessed that the 56% number would be even higher because, just anecdotally, it seems that most attorneys I talk to tell me that their law firm has a Buy Your Own Device (BYOD) approach towards smartphones.
One of the last questions in the survey is the top three technology issues or annoyances within your firm. At the top of the list are items like security compliance and user acceptance of change. But mobile device maintenance is at the very bottom of the list, right next to print drivers and print-related issues. There are a lot of technology challenges at law firms today, but apparently iPhones and iPads cause far less trouble for law firm IT professionals than other legal technology items.