2011: A Year Of Learning

Hello everyone. I feel like I have abandoned my blog but I have been quite busy lately working in a few projects. I have been writing though, with two blog entries and two articles for the International Legal Technology Association, ILTA.

What I want to accomplish with this post is not only summarize the highlights of my year, in terms of my career, but also what I learned from each project and situation and how I grew as consequence of them. So here I go.

Writing

I thought it was appropriate to start with this blog. It was launched in February with a goal of posting at least once a month but most importantly adding value. I did pretty well until the end of the year, when I got busy with our Windows 7 Roll out which I actually blogged about here and here. I feel like I continued to improve and define my writing style, and I learned how powerful social networks could really be. I never thought that I would reach over 1ooo people in three different continents with just a few posts and I hope I am adding value. Furthermore, I confirmed something that I know and practice; not taking action in your ideas and projects is a bad habit. Keep posting is a commitment that I made to myself and I am happy with the results primarily because I also participated in our ILTA Connected Community blog, but there are a couple of entries that I started and I think that would have been great and timely but never finished. So the take away is that once we have an idea or commit to something we must take action and finish it.

Many of you know that I serve as the Servers Operations & Security Peer Group VP for the International Legal Technology Association, ILTA and we launched a new blog which we hope will add value to our members. You can read not only our posts, but other formidable entries regarding Legal Technology here. In addition I wrote an article on Network Security for ILTA’s Risky Business White Paper and another for their Peer to Peer Magazine which describes how I work on strengthening my mind to achieve results and goals which you can read here. Again, I was reminded that I really need to make sure that I know and understand what I am writing about, which is the case, because of the impact that it could have in others. I re-affirmed that the goal is to add value.

Technology

I was pretty busy at Nexsen Pruet early in the year with infrastructure projects that included enhancing our dual MPLS network architecture by adding a second router to each location (formerly dual-homed in a single router). I learned more about BGP and EIGRP routing during this project and that while our network got more robust, it also did get more complicated. I also learned that Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity (DRBC) is an ongoing process that needs to be tested and adjusted properly as network and system topologies evolve. Besides, I again confirmed the importance of keeping good network and systems documentation up to date.

Four other major projects took place: an upgrade to our Video Conference infrastructure (VC), which I posted about here, the introduction of Application Level Monitoring through Riverbed’s Cascade appliance, expansion of Mobile Device fleet by introducing iPhones and MobileIron as our MDM solution, and a merger. I learned that while our VC system was heavily used the quality of experience by both the participants and IT folks in our team was very poor. Yes the investment was hefty, but the user experience has improved dramatically and in the last 2-3 months the adoption of desktop video both internally and externally has grown and is already in demand for 2012. That in addition to the ease of management tools of the new systems has probed the investment worthy.

We now have a better idea of what is going on in our network as far of traffic. We had been using Netflow collectors for a while which gave us a good picture of who was doing what, but I now personally have a much stronger understanding of how our applications interact with users and each other. Cascade gives us a great picture of all pieces interacting in a user action within our network and when there is a problem, it could tell us where it is, whether it is the network, servers, or clients. We are still on learning mode with this tool.

The introduction of iPhones and a merger kept me busy for a while. Whereas I learned a lot about mobile technologies and enhanced my knowledge of general security practices, I also discovered one a new passion on these two projects: Project Management. I have been managing projects since I became the Network Manager at the firm especially around telephony and facilities having c0-managed the last office move from a technology standpoint. The reason I like PM and that I will make an effort to continue to learn about this topic is because it gives me skills outside IT that I feel I need in order to continue to advance my career, specially so Risk Management, an area of great interest to me at the moment. I am not at a PMP level yet but I think that I am doing well and in fact, I have been tasked with building our Technology Project Management practice at the firm and now have a very talented PM reporting to me.

The rest of the year was dedicated to our Windows 7 and Office 2010 rollout. I learned so much that I don’t know where to start; from how many specialty applications we are running, to how attorneys and their staff work and use those apps, to how successful you could be when everyone is on board and rowing together towards the same goal. This was the most rewarding, and one of the most successful projects that I have been part of, and again, project management and planning was the key. My role during the project was of Deployment Manager in two different offices and Project Manager in two others. I learned a lot about how attorneys at different offices and practicing different laws work, and how unique their practices are. The most satisfying part of the project though, was seeing how so many talented people in our Technology Department grew during this project. This project also let me understand how important making adjustments while staying focus is; things go wrong, get delayed or even completely pushed out of the initial plan, but you must remain focused on the end goal and adjust as you go, which means that you must evaluate where you are constantly.

Leadership

I will never want to stop learning on this area, period. It is such a broad and complex, yet intriguing topic that I think evolution is the key to its mastering, if there is such thing. Anyway, as mentioned earlier I lead a group of legal technology professionals for ILTA. I got appointed as the VP for the Servers Operations Peer Group in August. One thing that I learned firsthand is how important succession is. My predecessor, Bob DuBois, did a great job getting me ready for the transition by assigning task with great visibility into both our team and the whole organization. Task that might seem trivial such as participating in calls with his peer officers or running our meetings really built confidence and got me ready to take it to the next level. This is something I have been doing since day one I became a manager but I had never seen in practice. I got promoted to a management role like many others because of achievements and results in the operations area without little management training or experience and it was a little tough at the beginning, but while adjusting and keeping focus made a difference then, I can now appreciate how much better it could’ve been if we planned ahead. I also learned how to deal with a larger team and building a new team, not to mention how different it is to manage your team at your company compared to managing a team of volunteers.

I also learned that leadership is about value, communication and helping others grow. Bob did a great job helping me transition to my Officer role and I recognized that and will always try to apply it as a way to help other grow. As we were getting ready for full deployment of Win7 my director and other project leaders recognized that the 3^rd party Project Management that we had hired for the project would not be a good fit going forward. He did a great job getting us to a point but things started to not go so well during the first office deployment. My Director approached me and asked me to take over as the Lead PM because we had discussed moving PM under me based on success in projects that I had led. Because of my passion for this area I was excited and honored by just being asked to take over such an important task. However, I also recognize an opportunity to build and help someone grow. We had hired our current PM a few years ago as a PM, but he never really had a chance to lead any project because of many different reasons. I saw this as his chance to grow into the role and gain credibility. He had just completed his Project+ certification and I ask my boss if he would be willing to let him lead the project instead. He hesitated a bit but I asked him to trust me, and most importantly, to trust him and he agreed with the condition that I stayed on top of it behind the scenes, which I did by mainly emphasizing communications. The rest of the project was a big success and I was greatly satisfied by seeing this person succeed when people doubted him.

So what is it about value? This year, during some hard times when the dark side wanted to take over me, I really had to dig and rediscover my core values. I learned that if I stick to those my whole life will make more sense to me and my family anyway, and I will in turn, be able to add more value to those around me. I thank Randi Mayes, Executive Director of ILTA, for her wise words on this topic and continued commitment to helping ILTA's officers and volunteers to grow.

My most precious take away about leadership, is that I am now learning how to apply all of these concepts to my personal life. While I think that friends and family have always looked up to me and willingly followed me, I never saw it as an opportunity to lead. Leading my family is my most important task and growing together as successful people is my most rewarding and precious treasure and I can now do it with a leadership approach which is enhancing our already strong relationship and making our core values stronger. It doesn’t get any better than that!


That's it. It was a year of learning, and it will always be. I will soon post on what is ahead for the 2012 year. I hope that it bring energy, health and prosperity to all of you and your families.


Here to a great 2011 and an even better 2012! Happy New Year!

An Exquisite Weekend with Passionate Volunteer Leaders

ex·quis·ite

Of particular refinement or elegance, as taste, manners, etc., or persons.

pas·sion
Any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate. 

This weekend I traveled to Austin, TX, home of the International Legal Technology Association, ILTA, to attend orientation for the organization's new Volunteer Officers as I was recently appointed as VP of its Servers Operations and Security Peer Group (PG), one of twelve PGs that conform one of three core columns that support the structure of the organization along with Regional Groups (RG) and Conference Committee (CC). New officers Chris Boyd, VP of Knowledge Management PG, Joanne Lane, VP of Litigation Support PG, and Kathryn McCarthy South Pacific Regional VP attended the meeting as well as members of the BoD Scott Christensen, President, and Michelle Gossmeyer, PGVP Liaison. ILTA was represented by the Exquisite Randi Mayes, Executive Director and the equally Exquisite Peggy Wechsler, Program Director. I wasn't really sure about what to expect going in other than a great conversation around leadership, which was not only accomplished, but surpassed. My main goal was simply to listen.

I was completely delighted to hear the way that Randi, who led the conversation, started the meeting. She talked about the two words that start the post as defined by Dictionary.com. Now, by definition passion can be good or bad, so when you are leading and communicating you have to be careful on how to use it and channel it in a positive way. We were reminded that Leadership is really a behavior and that controlling our emotions is an important part of it. Meanwhile, I love the context that Randi used when she talked to us about the word exquisite; communication and respect. These two words also reflect the way that ILTA's leadership is based on as stated by its core values, in short, by respecting each other while collaborating and being a steward to the organization and its members.

Leading to the meeting Randi sent out a couple of great articles on leadership in preparation to the meeting both by Jim Collins, "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down", which you can read here, and "The Misguided Mix-Up of Celebrity and Leadership." which you can find here . They both address different yet powerful aspect of leadership. The former tell us that great organizations that achieve sustainable success do embrace change and stimulate progress, but one thing remains pretty much unchangeable, their core values. They can evolve, they can mature, they can be re-written, but in essence core values remain unchangeable. Well, that is precisely how I have been able to advance my career, and the reason I believe that I was honored with the appointment as an officer of ILTA; I try to lead by sticking by my values and by modeling my behavior after them: Passion, Integrity, Commitment, Knowledge and Stewardship. Those are my core values and I see them very well aligned with those with the two world class organizations that I proudly represent Nexsen Pruet law firm and ILTA. So you see? I simply cannot stop being passionate because this quality is an important part of me. However, perhaps my passion and the way I apply it can evolve and become an even more powerful tool for me.

Another great point made in the article is that "true leadership is inversely proportional to the exercise of power". Again, this just confirms what I have always believed: first people starts following you, which makes you a leader, then you get recognition, whether it is by means of a title or not. I see leading as not exercising power; instead I see it as adding value and stimulating others to achieve common goals and personal and professional growth.

The second and equally great article "The Misguided Mix-Up of Celebrity and Leadership" talks about how good companies can evolve into great ones when they are led by individuals with objectives focused on the overall good of the company they serve, and whose "ambition is first and foremost for the institution and its greatness, not for themselves". Collins defines this type of leadership as "Level 5 Leadership." Level 5 leaders according to his studies possess all qualities of good leaders as defined by the other four levels "but also have and "extra dimension": a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will" I invite you to learn more about each level of leadership by reading the article. This goes back to the previous paragraph; leading is absolutely not about you but about others.

After reading about Level 5 Leadership I asked myself "How do I relate to it? And Can I become one such leader?" Collins gives us an example of a level 5 leader in Darwin E. Smith, former chief executive of Kimberly-Clark who remained pretty much unknown while transforming the business on a company that eventually beat monsters Procter & Gamble and Scott Paper in many categories. Darwin's vision and leadership was keen, but what struck me and I relate to is that he summed up his tenure by saying, "I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job." Wow! I so try to do that every day. Every day I try to be better and more efficient at doing my job and adding value to my team and The Firm that I represent.

Finally I was completely impressed with the different leadership styles and input of my fellow new ILTA VPs. Chris, an attorney and well-known Knowledge Management professional has been instrumental on the success of our KMPG as a founder member of the its steering committee (SC). What impressed me the most about him was his vision and exquisite, yet clear way to communicate; he even came up with a new line to express how ILTA relationship with its vendors should be viewed, something that Peggy, being the great leader she is, immediately recognized and will be adding to our arsenal. Joanne, who has built Litigation Support in different organizations from the ground up, is a proactive leader who does not shy away from stepping up and leading her team during difficult times, which she has already done twice during her tenure as a Litigation Support SC member, which ultimately led her to become the PGVP. Finally Kathryn, who has been a City Rep since 2006 and wears many hats at her firm, struck me as having a leadership style that combines thoughtfulness and creativity to drive people. Meanwhile, I have to thank Scott and Michelle for the exquisite job they’ve done as leaders of the BoD, and for trusting us with our new roles, which includes building the new leadership waves of ILTAns, just like they’ve done for years.

The day ended with a great local style dinner with fun conversations, followed by an old fashioned ILTA style social networking at the unique Austin's 6th Street, were we got to know each other better and have fun. I even learned that Chris and Kathryn are big soccer fans, one of my passions and topic of discussion in my next post about leadership.

About ILTA. For over three decades, the International Legal Technology Association has led the way in sharing knowledge and experience for those faced with challenges in their firms and legal departments. Through delivery of educational content and peer-networking opportunities, we provide members information resources in order to make technology work for the legal profession. Visit ILTA at www.iltanet.org

ILTA Conference 2011. Server Ops and Security, and Tech Ops Teams will deliver great content

2011 rev-elation Conference is approaching and our Server Ops and Security PG is bringing great educational content to it. Our fabulous Steering Committee team, led by Bob DuBois, and completed by myself, Tom Crowe, Mark Brophy, Nate Smith, Dave Nevala, and Toni Brester has done a great job developing sessions around topics often seen in the discussion boards around different technologies that support our demanding law firms. But first, a quick overview of the Conference Team.

The journey began on Friday August 27^th of 2010 while many of us where returning from the fantastic 2010 Strategic Unity in Las Vegas. Right then, our awesome Co-Chairs two-year veteran, Meredith Williams, first-year Co-Chair Kathy Lentini, BoD Liaison, Eric Anderson, along with ILTA’s TJ Johnson and Peggy Wechsler, began looking at their strategy to tackle this year’s conference. As for myself, I am on my 2^nd year representing the SOSPG in the Technology Operations Track. Meredith and Kathy made a great choice by appointing Skip Lohmeyer as Tech Ops Team Leader and together they brought in an impressive group of Legal Technology Professionals that make up our team. The same is true for the other three teams that complete the whole Conference Committee, which are Information Management, Organization Management and Applications/Desktop. Together the committee has come up with almost 200 educational sessions. I thought that last year’s conference was the best that I had ever attended; today I realize that I will say that after each conference that I attend. It is just amazing how the team came up with this amazing content, and how ILTA does it every year. Last but not least, Gaylord Opryland Resort has made an impressive recovery work after being 8-10 ft. under water after the flood in Nashville last year and it is looking better than ever; what a gorgeous venue for our Conference. Oh, and they will tell us their recovery story in Conference. You can’t miss it.

I can only give you a 10K ft. view of what we are bringing to conference as a Peer Group but I am very excited about our sessions and I know you will as well. The team tried to create good balance to bring relevant content that can have an immediate impact on technologies that you are currently evaluating from a servers operations and security perspective. In addition, the whole Tech Ops Team is delivering equally well balanced and amazing advanced sessions in areas of technology infrastructure that support our computing networks. Here is a quick view:

IPv6. Yes is finally coming. And it will be at ILTA this year as well. We are teaming up with the Emerging Technologies PG to deliver two sessions that will unveil IPv6 for us and what it means to how will be running our networks soon. As a reminder, watch out for “World IPv6 Day “on June 8^th. If you thought this is not relevant think again as Asia have ran out of IPv4 and Europe is next as reported by NetworkWorld here http://tinyurl.com/65e6d7v

Endpoint and Media Encryption. Three different Law Firms will tell their story on why this technology is needed, what’s available, what to watch for. There will be content for all firm sizes here.

VDI. We’ve done this one before, but never at this scale. See how two very large firms with global foot prints have delivered hundreds of Virtual Desktops effectively. An impressive session is being developed with equally impressive speakers.

Securing the Virtual Environment. You have to come see this one because traditional security no longer applies to the virtualized world.

Upgrading to Exchange 2010. How do you prepare for it? What challenges can you encounter when coming from different previous versions? Two firms and one of our great ILTA Sponsors will prepare you for it.

Technology Operations Forecast. The way we design, implement, and manage technology will not be the same. This session is part of ILTA’s Law 2020 initiative.

And there are other amazing sessions being delivered by the Tech Ops Team which include, a Disaster Recovery session where the Gaylord will tell their story after the flooding and a global firm with offices in Japan will do the same after the massive earthquake and Tsunami that hit them this year. Other Sessions include DLP, Exploring the Exchange 2010 Ecosystem, Hosted Communications (both voice and email), Securing Windows 7, Keeping Documents Secured in Mobile Devices, and Change Management Impact on Tech Ops.

Go register for this year conference, and when you get there, check out the SOSPG group and Tech Ops sessions. You don’t want to miss this year’s conference! And please join me on thanking the amazing people behind our PG and Conference Committee teams for contributing with their time and knowledge to help ILTA make this great conference happen!

About ILTA. For over three decades, the International Legal Technology Association has led the way in sharing knowledge and experience for those faced with challenges in their firms and legal departments. Through delivery of educational content and peer-networking opportunities, we provide members information resources in order to make technology work for the legal profession. Visit ILTA at www.iltanet.org

Technical Safeguards for Legal regarding HIPAA

In February 2010 the Legal Industry got hit with a pretty big compliance issue when the HI-TECH Act made changes affecting HIPAA Business Associates. The legal world gets directly affected by these changes because Law Firms that work with Covered Entities through their Health Care, Litigation, and perhaps other practices, become Business Associates. I will not go any further into details of the actual specifications of the law. Instead, I will focus on what you could do to implement Technical Safeguards to protect Electronic Protected Health Care Information, ePHI. Meanwhile, I will refer you to ILTA’s HIPAA Rules for Law Firms article enclosed in the Peer to Peer edition of March 2010. Notice that I am only dealing with Electronic PHI here, and hard copies of this form of data deserve attention as well.

Protecting that pesky ePHI and THE FIRM

HIPAA brings new Information Management and Information Security challenges to the legal industry and its technology practitioners but it is also a good opportunity to protect your firm as a whole, which I have been preaching since engaging in the HIPAA project because of my background on security. Any regulatory compliance requirement that your firm is going through is an opportunity for the Technology Department to build a strong security program around it. You may not need to apply specific HIPAA safeguards to the whole firm, but I can assure you that there are other regulations that you need to comply with, and if that is not the case, it is just common sense, especially with new regulations around Personal Identifiable Information around the nation.

Since we are focused on HIPAA here, let’s take care of the Health Care practice and the HR area that deals with ePHI and problem solved you may be thinking. Wrong! Expect MANY folks outside the Health Care practice to be BAs because involvement in different Matters. I encourage you to conduct a survey asking who handles any type of PHI, whether electronic or not. I bet you will be astonished with the results.

BUT WHERE IS THAT DATA? I mean, really. Do you know where all the ePHI is? If you do, then I salute you. Oh, and I know that you are thinking about your Document Management System, DMS, your Financial Systems, and your File and Print servers. Is that it? Can you probe it? How about laptops, desktops, and other servers? This is an ongoing process and the stepping stone of any implementation that follows. You can’t protect something that you are not aware of. It is important to understand that you must be able to log and audit your systems in order to probe compliance. Thus, my inclination for systems that meet that critical requirement.

Today there are tools that can scan your network and leverage built-in dictionaries and rules that help you identify compliance specific data. They are often referred as DLP tools (Data Leak/Loss Prevention tools) however, don’t rely on them completely. Talk to the data owners and users as well. I have found over the years that users are the best resource that you can use while building your security program.

We found the data, let’s build the Fort

Let’s start with Access Control. Make sure you understand your network as a whole, especially your Active Directory (AD) Security Groups and other security elements of it. I am sure that you follow industry best practices, but can you audit and probe that? Implement a strong Security Information and Event Management tool, SIEM, which goes beyond traditional Log Aggregation. Products such as TriGeo, and LogRythim have built-in “intelligence” that not only can help you log and audit, but also aid your Change Management strategy, something I am big on as stated in my last post. You will gain visibility into any changes made into your security groups. There are also AD specific auditing tools that can aid on this area and may be more accessible such as ManageEngine products.

Additionally, take a look at your Ethical Walls approach and see if you can extend it beyond your Records department. It is extremely important that there is ongoing communication and collaboration between IT and Records during this process so that you can expand your strategy to areas of IT such as DMS, and Financial systems through software like RBRO, WincWall or IntApp, in addition to Risk Management built-in features in your DMS or Financial systems.

Data in Motion is not only email

We often think of Data in Motion as email, so let’s start there. My background in Health Care taught me one thing: securing ePHI moving through your messaging system could become a nightmare if not thought thoroughly. In my experience I’ve found that the first thing to mind is TLS, which is a great encryption method, yet unmanageable in mid-size and large environments. The same applies to a Certificate based PKI approach. In both cases, the challenge is managing all those certificates and keys. Furthermore, you’ll have to deal with those smaller Health Care practices that don’t have an IT Department capable of setting up managing their end.

A third solution includes full email encryption products that deliver encrypted messages to the recipient’s inbox. Products such as Cisco’s IronPort, ProofPoint, or the very well-known in the Legal vertical Mimecast deliver messages either as encrypted attachments or with a link that will redirect you to a secure site where you can read your messages and take action on them. I highly favor this approach because they are centrally managed, more scalable, and have stronger logging and reporting capabilities. However, be prepared to provide clients with the other two alternatives. You will come across end-users that will hate having to go through an extra step to “just read an email”.

Then there is the new world of mobility, which includes Laptops in all forms, USB drives and other removable media, Smartphones, tablets and the list keeps growing.

You can address issues around laptops and removable media with Encryption tools such as those offered by Check Point, PGP, or Credant, or the free, yet extremely strong TrueCrypt. You will have to pick “your pain” when it comes to encryption. If you choose to go with a Full Disk Encryption approach then you are going to have to deal with pre-boot authentication, which can become a pain when performing trivial tasks such as troubleshooting a system that needs to be rebooted, or deploying software upgrades (in addition to the adoption opposition). If you go with just File Level Encryption only, your devices may still be exposed to Brute Force attacks. And then, there’s Credant’s interesting approach, which encrypts at the file level, yet, it protects the machine’s registry that deal with AD Security database and swap files, which protects the device against access attacks. I really like this approach.

Encryption tools also protect removable media such as USB drives and even SIM cards in Smartphones by deploying policies that can limit device access, white list them so that only approved devices are allowed, and encrypt data in a similar way as previously described. Just make sure that you are aware of what your mobile device float looks like and that you set expectations with regards to client involvement, meaning, what to do when you send data and devices to each other.

Smartphones are also a concern, and although most people think of the problem in regards to email I think that we need to look further and create a strategy that address security concerns around it as a whole, just like you handle laptops. As stated in 2010 ILTA Conference session, Strategies for Managing Disparate Devices in Your Mobile Fleet, these devices are PLATFORMS, so you must threat them as such. I will dedicate a different post to this topic, but for now, know that there are tools that can help you manage these devices by separating corporate data from personal data and in turn, encrypt and control the business data and take action such as deny access or remote wipe the firm’s data. Examples include Good Technologies, MobileIron and Zenprise. McAfee and TrendMicro among others, are also coming up with AV Software for these devices, which in my opinion, will be a must have by the end of this year.

If your firm is dealing with HIPAA, then take this an opportunity to enhance your Information Security program, which in my opinion, has been traditionally too loose in the Legal sector. I will be blogging later on Information Security Policies and Procedures, as well as Disaster Recovery, which are important areas to achieve HIPAA compliance.

What is your firm doing to protect Electronic Protected Health Care Information? Moreover, what other regulations are hitting your firm?