Posted: April 5th, 2018
uses of the Internet in law offices.
Question description
OBJECTIVE: Write a page paper – Describe common uses of the Internet in law offices.INSTRUCTIONS: Read the hypothetical below:
After working in the new office for a few months, Janet Hannah became
concerned about Internet use. She expressed a potential ethical concern
to both attorneys after seeing on the secretary’s computer a message
posted on a trial attorney discussion board with a fact pattern that was
very similar to a case on which both Mason and Marshall appeared to be
working. She also expressed concern that Marshall was addicted to the
Internet for legal and factual research, as well as for personal
activities like trading stocks and exploring virtual environments to the
point that the whole system slowed down using the dial-up connection
that they shared. And, if they did not stop downloading information and
freeware and saving everything on the file server, they would be out of
computer storage space very soon. As a result of this conversation,
Mason asked Hannah to draft an Internet policy for the office, outlining
how the Internet should and should not be used on the office computers.Perform
an online search to locate Internet policies established by law offices
or other businesses. Review them to get a feel for the types of rules
and guidelines that can be established and enforced to control Internet
use in an office.Draft an Internet use policy for the law
office described in the scenario. Be sure to consider both security and
ethical issues as you prepare your Internet use policy. At a minimum,
your policy must include guidelines for: Managing passwordsSending and receiving e-mail attachmentsDownloading files and softwarePerforming free and fee-based online researchIn
an Internal Memorandum, include your Internet policy and briefly state
reasons for each policy established. In order to educate the attorneys
and office staff, and to impress upon the importance of complying with
the Internet use policy, briefly summarize your reasons for each rule or
set or rules in your policy
