New survey results indicate that a record number of attorneys are using an iPhone in their law practice: 80% of all attorneys in the United States. These numbers come from the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center, which has conducted a survey every year since 1990 to gauge the use of legal technology by attorneys in private practice in the United States. If you want to know what legal technology lawyers are using, this is one of the best sources for that information.
The 2021 report (edited by Sasha Goncharov) was just released, and as always, I am particularly interested in the statistics on mobile technology. For many years, the ABA reported on smartphone use every year, but for the last few years that data only comes out every other year. This is one of those years, and this is the twelfth year that I have reported on this survey. (My reports on the prior ABA surveys are located here: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.)
80% of all U.S. attorneys use an iPhone
When the ABA started asking lawyers about smartphone use in 2011, only 31% of attorneys were using an iPhone. But that use has increased every year, and in 2021, a record 80% of all attorneys in the United States are using an iPhone. The only other player in 2021 is Android, which is used by 19% of attorneys. (About 1% or less of all attorneys use both.) This year, the percentage of attorneys not using any smartphone in their law practice is 2%, which is frankly higher than I would have expected.
I traditionally show a pie chart to make it easy to see what smartphones are in use. That probably isn't necessary at this point with only two platforms in use, but for the sake of tradition, let's do it anyway.
80% is the overall number, and iPhone use is even higher in larger firms. In firms with 100 or more attorneys, 86% of all attorneys used an iPhone in 2021. On the other extreme, 61% of solo attorneys reported using an iPhone in 2021. In firms with 100 or more attorneys, 13% use Android, whereas 33% of solo attorneys use Android.
I always find the trends over time more interesting than the data from any one year. Back in 2011, when the ABA first started to ask attorneys what type of smartphone they used, the BlackBerry was still on top at 40%, but that was a decrease from prior years. The iPhone was at 31% in 2011, and it has increased just about every year since then. In 2012, the iPhone overtook the BlackBerry. In 2013, iPhone use crossed the 50% mark at 57%. In 2019, iPhone use crossed the 75% mark at 79%. And this year, it increased even more to 80%.
Android use started at 15% in 2011, increased to a high of 25% in 2018, and has been around 18%-19% since 2019.
Who is making the decision to use the iPhone or Android platform? For the most part, it is the individual attorneys. Over 80% of attorneys say that they are allowed to select their own brand, model, and type of smartphone. That percentage decreases somewhat as firm size increases, hitting 71% for law firms with 100 or more attorneys.
You cannot use a smartphone without paying a monthly service fee. Overall, 47% of attorneys say that their law firm fully pays the cost of the mobile phone service, and another 20% get some sort of stipend. But those numbers vary widely based on firm size. For example, only 34% of large firms (100 or more attorneys) pay the full cost, but that percentage increases as firm size decreases to a high of 67% for solo attorneys.
A smartphone is particularly useful for checking email, and this year, 53% say that their smartphone is the primary way that they access email while out of the office. That's down from 70% when this question was asked in 2019. This year, 28% say that their work laptop is their primary way used to access email while out of the office.
Attorney tablet use
Before 2019, the ABA also asked about tablet use. From 2013 to 2018, about half of all attorneys reported using a tablet, and for those who did, between 80% and 90% reported using an iPad. But starting in 2019, the ABA stopped asking a direct question about tablet use.
In the 2021 survey, tablet use is addressed in a few questions. For example, the survey asks whether tablet devices are "available for use" at the attorney's law firm. I interpret that question as asking whether the law firm purchases tablets for attorneys to use, which would not capture individual attorneys buying their own iPad to use in their law practice. Whatever that question means, the percentage is 38% in 2021. In 2017, the answer to that question was 61%, and it has declined every year since then. But again, I don't think that question really captures how many attorneys are using an iPad or other tablet device because of the way it is worded.
Another question asked what type of devices are used to regularly conduct legal research while away from the office. The top seven answers are:
- Laptop computer — 67%
- Home desktop computer — 32%
- Smartphone — 21%
- Tablet device — 14%
- E-book reader — 1.6%
- AI assistant – 1.5%
- Smart wearable — 0.4%
The first two responses are not surprising. The next two responses also make sense to me because while I think that it is easier to do legal research on an iPad than an iPhone, I suspect that the number of attorneys who use an iPad is about half the number who use an iPhone, and that alone would account for those percentages.
As for the sixth and seventh items on that list, I have a lot of questions. 1.5% of attorneys are using something like Siri to do legal research? I have an image of an attorney saying "Hey Siri, can you please Keycite or Shepardize this case" and that seems wrong. I'm having an even harder time wrapping my brain around the last response. There are over a million attorneys in the United States, so a 0.4% answer means that over 4,000 attorneys are somehow doing legal research on their Apple Watch? If any of those folks are iPhone J.D. readers, I'd love to hear what in the world you are doing, because this doesn't seem like it would work for me: