Mobile Lawyers Use Personal Phones, Tablets and Watches With World-Class Security

With offices around the world, this major law firm has both a fiduciary and contractual responsibility to protect client information. Initially, the firm sought both a secure way to deploy commonly-used legal applications such as iManage®, a document repository solution, and a vendor that could assist with technical support issues. Working with BlackBerry enabled the law firm to access secure mobility without having to build and maintain a complex and expensive VPN infrastructure, while also freeing its IT staff from overly focusing on technical support issues.

Riding on the success of its earlier deployment, the law firm now seeks to adopt a wider range of applications. It has once more turned to BlackBerry for assistance, deploying BlackBerry® Analytics and working with BlackBerry partner AppDome® to enable new apps and use cases.

Lawyers are constantly on the go, working from the offices of their clients and co-counsels, airports, courtrooms, and home. Wherever they are, they need secure access to email and documents. But they also want to travel light – rather than having to haul around a laptop, they want to work entirely from their smartphone or tablet. The ability for lawyers to work securely any time, on the devices at hand, increases their productivity as well as billable hours - having a direct impact on the law firm's bottom line.

Confidentiality is critical in attorney-client relationships, and the firm zealously safeguards client identities and case details. Some clients even audit the firm’s security processes when selecting counsel and at regular intervals throughout their relationship. According to one partner at the law firm, confidentiality is written directly into its contractual obligation letters.

To protect confidential information, the firm previously provided its lawyers with BlackBerry smartphones and encrypted laptops. However, many wished to use their personal smartphones and tablets in the workplace. With BlackBerry’s help, the firm was able to adopt a secure Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policy and implement a wealth of apps developed by Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).

However, the firm realized there was a gap in its mobility posture. While it was able to seamlessly deploy ISV apps, there were several applications for which a secure, enterprise-ready version did not exist. iManage is a prime example.

iManage allows legal firms to upload contracts and pull in any existing cases they might be working on. It’s popular for both its ease of use and its project management capabilities. Decision makers at the firm knew that use of the tool was non-negotiable – so they needed a secure way to integrate it and any other third-party apps they might deploy with existing systems.

BlackBerry provided exactly that.

The BlackBerry® Enterprise Mobility Suite – Collaboration Edition forms the backbone of the law firm’s mobile infrastructure, allowing it to mobilize content, deploy business apps, and deliver enhanced collaboration to its attorneys. It keeps all work-related apps and information in separate encrypted containers on lawyers’ personal devices. If a lawyer reports a device as lost or stolen, the IT department can wipe the contents of the work containers without touching personal information.

This functionality, thanks to BlackBerry® UEM, is a unified endpoint management and policy control solution designed to manage a diverse set of endpoints from a single console. BlackBerry UEM enables lawyers to use their mobile devices as-needed without putting security at risk. Additionally, through the BlackBerry UEM App Catalog, the firm can offer a wide range of applications that both enhance workflow and extend application functionality to more devices.

The firm has also been using leading PIM solution BlackBerry® Work for business-grade email and collaboration. With the BlackBerry Work productivity-oriented user interface, employees can open any BlackBerry or BlackBerry-secured ISV app with a single tap.  But the firm – and its lawyers – wanted more.

When it came time to renew its contract, the firm thus upgraded its service plan accordingly.

“The firm opted for a two-year extension in licensing the BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Suite – Collaboration Edition and added an upgraded BlackBerry® Services plan which includes Premium Support,” explains the Account Manager at BlackBerry. “In addition to iAnnotate®, GoodReader®, Intapp Time®, Breezy®, and Polaris Office®, the firm’s IT department has chosen to use mobile code integration platform AppDome to securely deploy several new ISV apps. The firm has also purchased licenses for BlackBerry Analytics, which will give them more visibility into how deployed applications are installed and used.”

Developed by BlackBerry partner AppDome, the AppDome Platform’s AppFusion integration service enables codeless integration of features and functionality such as those provided by the BlackBerry Dynamics software kit to any third-party application. This enables businesses to easily take advantage of Blackberry Dynamics’ leading containerization technology when developing internal applications.  ISV apps developed through AppDome can be deployed with BlackBerry’s security already baked-in.

Moreover, with BlackBerry® Premium Support, the firm gains access to weekly reviews conducted by an experienced BlackBerry Premium Support Manager. This helps the firm stay up to date on versions, upgrades, future releases, and feature enhancement requests, thus allowing its IT department to focus on business growth and revenue generation rather than technical support. The support plan also includes a service-level agreement that aligns with the expectations of the firm’s customers.

BlackBerry Analytics, meanwhile, allows the firm to monitor the usage of the BlackBerry Dynamics-secured apps across its entire deployment.

One of the key requirements of the firm’s renewal was to find an alternative document editing solution to Office 365®, as it was uncertain the application’s security policies and configurations would meet its standards. BlackBerry was able to support this need by enabling the secure use of the ISV app SmartOffice, while also offering several third-party offerings for PDF editing and printing.

Leading Security: BlackBerry products are known for providing secure productivity without sacrificing usability. It’s why solutions like BlackBerry Work so often outshine the competition in evaluations such as Gartner’s EMM Magic Quadrant. It’s also why the law firm originally chose BlackBerry Work after evaluating and testing a competitor’s product.

“They have a lot of respect for the process that we put into our architecture, compared to our competitors who seem to just throw stuff out into the marketplace to see what sticks”, explains the BlackBerry Account Manager. “In their minds, we’re actually putting thought into how our products work securely together – and that goes a long way.  The fact that our environment has no demilitarized zone and no inbound open ports is critically important to them, as well.”

“With BlackBerry, we’re meeting and exceeding our clients’ demands for world-class security,” adds a partner at the firm. “What’s more, our lawyers are relieved knowing that they don’t need to worry about a data breach if they lose their device.”

When this occurs, the IT team can immediately wipe the container’s contents, including client names, files and calendar appointments. Lawyers also appreciate that they alone— not the IT team—have access to their personal apps and data.  This is made possible by the fact that BlackBerry’s platform does not require an MDM client in BYOD environments – something which distinguishes BlackBerry from many competitors.

Convenient Access to Email and Documents: The firm’s lawyers use BlackBerry Work to securely access email, contacts, and calendars. They can also view and annotate documents and PDF files such as contracts and briefs using BlackBerry-secured ISV apps such as GoodReader, SmartOffice or iAnnotate, while also conveniently recording time and billing information with Intapp Time.

Lawyers are now able to review and edit contracts no matter where they are, even if they don’t have WiFi capability. This allows them to be more productive, while also streamlining expense management. A subset of attorneys is also utilizing ISV app Captor^® for BlackBerry to take secure photos of expense receipts, which they can then easily attach to related case files.

“Security was the main driver behind the firm’s decision to choose BlackBerry, but productivity is very close behind it,” explains the BlackBerry Account Manager. “And not just that, but also stability. Our solutions work when they’re needed, and they work well.” 

Expanded Application Infrastructure: BlackBerry Dynamics provides a foundation for secure enterprise mobility, offering an advanced mobile application container – one the firm is using extensively alongside AppDome. For example, many top attorneys and executives need to print emails on their mobile devices.

The AirPrint^® functionality on iOS^® did not pass the firm’s security standards. ISV app Breezy^® for BlackBerry was the answer. Secured by BlackBerry Dynamics, Breezy provides a secure transport for AirPrint on any device, allowing the firm’s attorneys to enjoy the workflows that they prefer without security concerns.

Through AppDome’s fusion functionality, the firm is working to integrate iManage. Lawyers will soon have easy, secure access to one of the most popular document editing platforms in their industry. In addition to iManage, the firm is also evaluating several other AppDome-supported ISV apps:

• ServiceNow^®, which will allow the firm to better manage support incidents and requests.
• BlackBerry^® Password Keeper™, for better password management and storage.
• Sharefile^®, which will enable lawyers to securely access the firm’s existing document repository system on mobile devices.

Finally, the firm is looking into BlackBerry^® Enterprise BRIDGE, which connects BlackBerry UEM with Microsoft^® Intune and enables the secure use of native Microsoft^® Office apps on mobile. It is also seeking a means of exchanging information with clients, such as BBM^® Enterprise.

Exceptional Service and Support: The BlackBerry Premium Support Manager has proven time and again that they are willing to go above and beyond for their clients. Through proactive communication, the BlackBerry Premium Service Manager has been able to help the firm quickly detect and eliminate technical issues, triage different support teams within BlackBerry, and offer fast issue resolution and maximum infrastructure reliability.

The IT team no longer needs to directly manage its BYOD devices, and thanks to their BlackBerry Premium Support license, they have an expert on-hand for assistance with technical issues.

“Shifting our focus from mobile device management to mobile application management—takes much less time,” explained the IT manager in charge of messaging at the law firm. “If someone calls the helpdesk because an application isn’t working as expected, we help them get back in business in a few minutes instead of having to leave their device with us for a day.”

Better Metrics, Deeper Insights: The firm, explains the account manager, takes performance monitoring and management very seriously.  BlackBerry Analytics provides key metrics around application usage, allowing its IT personnel to make more informed decisions about the firm’s deployment. It delivers the sort of depth that the firm’s decision-makers are looking for.

“BlackBerry Analytics will help guide the firm’s app strategy, providing a roadmap in the future based on insight into overall app usage as well as specific feature usage,” notes the BlackBerry Account Manager.