For the past 30 years, the ABA has conducted an annual survey of lawyers to find out what legal technology they use. These results are released every year by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center. The 2020 report (edited by Gabriella Mihm) was just released. There are five volumes, and you can purchase a copy using this page of the ABA website.
I have been looking at these reports every year since 2010 because it has been the best source of statistics on the use of mobile technology by lawyers. (My reports on the prior ABA surveys are located here: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.) Starting in 2011, the survey asked lawyers what smartphones they use, and from 2011 to 2019, we saw a steady increase in iPhone use, reaching a record high of just over 79% in 2019. Android use by lawyers started at 17% in 2011, reached a peak of slightly over 25% in 2018, and then was down to about 18% in 2019. During those same years, we saw the fall of the once-dominant BlackBerry along with all other smartphone brands other than the iPhone and Android.
Unfortunately, we don't have updated numbers for 2020. The ABA has decided to switch each year between Life & Practice questions, including which type of smartphone a lawyer uses, and Litigation Technology & E-Discovery questions. This year is a Litigation Technology & E-Discovery year, so we will have to wait until 2021 to get updated information from the survey on which smartphones are being used by lawyers in their law practices.
Nevertheless, there are still lots of questions in this year's survey that shed some light on how lawyers are using mobile technology in their law practice. Here are the survey results that jumped out at me.
Online research
About 77% of lawyers reported that they do online legal research when they are out of the office. The most popular way to do so is with a laptop or desktop computer (63%). But 20% of attorneys reported doing legal research in the web browser on a smartphone or tablet, and almost 13% reported using a mobile app for legal research.
Doing online research on an iPad works very well, and I do it all the time. Legal research on an iPhone is more difficult with the smaller screen, but sometimes that is the only device that you have with you when you have an immediate need to consult a statute or a case. The answers to the question of how often do you use a smartphone to conduct legal research while away from the office were:
Regularly: 23.8%
Occasionally: 25.9%
Seldom: 20.0%
Never: 30.3%
The iPhone and iPad in the courtroom
Speaking of legal research while out of the office, one such venue for doing so is the courtroom. But of course, there are many other reasons to use an iPhone or iPad in the courtroom, from consulting a calendar to scheduling upcoming dates to giving an appellate oral argument.
According to the survey, 83% of lawyers say that they use a smartphone in the courtroom. And for the last four years, the responses to that question have remained in the 80% to 84% range, so lawyers have been doing this for some time now. Lawyers at law firms with 100 or more attorneys are somewhat more likely to use a smartphone in the courtroom (90%) and sole practitioners are slightly less likely to do so (74%).
Here is a chart showing what lawyers report doing with their smartphone in court (click to enlarge). The most popular uses are email and calendaring. I was amused to see 21% of lawyers report that they use their smartphone in court to browse the web to kill time — something that I hope attorneys only do while waiting for the judge to enter the courtroom.
Far fewer attorneys report using a tablet device in the courtroom — about 33%. Having said that, while virtually every attorney has a smartphone (99% in the 2019 survey), only about 50% reported using a tablet device in their law practice in the 2018 survey (and we don't have more recent numbers).
Mobile Device Management
Back when the Blackberry was practically considered part of a lawyer's uniform, it was common for law firms to purchase a Blackberry and provide it to attorneys, which of course is still fairly standard for computers. But for many years now, law firms have embraced the BYOD (bring your own device) philosophy. Of course, law firms still need to worry about security, so many law firms implement some form of Mobile Device Management (MDM) software so that lawyers can use their personal smartphone to access a law firm's network while also ensuring that certain security safeguards are in place (such as using a complex password). And MDM has other advantages, such as making it easier to install apps on every attorney's smartphone.
According to the survey, only 33% of all lawyers say that they can access their law firm's network without any restriction. That number rises to around 40% for smaller law firms, falls to 28% for law firms with 100-499 attorneys, and falls to about 14% for lawyers at law firms of 500 lawyers or more. What do the remaining lawyers report? About 54% are required to comply with certain restrictions and/or get pre-approval to use a personal device, whether it be MDM or something else. (And for law firms of 10 or more attorneys, that goes up to 68% or more.) About 10% say that they are not allowed to use a personal device to access their law firm's network.
