Software blues

 tl;dr: I have a love/hate relationship with software.

Let me explain what happened... Last year, about this time, I had one attorney and three law clerks working for me. We had checklists and the law clerks would use a template, change the header information, and edit from there. We rarely sent out discovery because it took approximately an hour to edit the template and just wasn't worth the money. 

And then (like more or less everyone is saying), the pandemic hit. We had some staff who were high risk. We had some simply take off to go "home" to California before the state shut down. We had some like me that were just scared and didn't want to be around humans that breathed the same air. So, we moved to work from home (WFH). I still interpret those letters as "what fresh hell?!".

Because I'm primarily practicing in debt defense and because the creditors developed a little bit of a conscience, cases dried up. I'm not one to sit and wait for things to get better and I knew that this was likely only temporary. If businesses are shutting down and people are being laid off, the creditors aren't going to simply get over someone owing them thousands of dollars. They're going to wait, they're going to get their judgments eventually, and when they can do so without looking like pandemic profiteers, they're going to collect. I knew we would eventually see an absolute tsunami of debt collection lawsuits and bankruptcies. So, I took the downtime to improve my software. 

We'd need a communication function. If some are in Ohio, some in California, some in South Carolina, and nobody is face to face, we'd need a way to communicate "I need you to do this answer by Monday." We found some software that worked. I also needed to streamline the process for the future. I put together some Word templates that allow me to enter the information in one place and it auto-populates throughout. Suddenly, I boiled down a process that should have taken approximately 3 hours to less than 30 minutes. Finally, we digitized everything. Every single file came home and got scanned, uploaded, renamed, and sorted into digital files so that it was all accessible from anywhere.

This worked great until recently. I'm licensed in a ridiculous number of states and that tsunami of cases I mentioned?? Well, we haven't even been hit by the hardest wave yet but we can see it coming for us. Frankly, my office manager is struggling to keep my calendar up to date and accurate. So, for the second time in less than a year, we're changing our entire software. 

This has led to about two weeks of 3-4 hours sleep a night while I'm inputting client info. We had a false start on one software before realizing it was not going to do everything I needed it to do. I just paid for a different one today. The scalability is incredible, and I keep finding little features here and there that make me more and more impressed. I truly feel like I'm punching above my weight class with this one, because it's going to take that 30 minute process and streamline it to more like 10. All of the future invoices for future work... it's no longer a matter of 5 minutes per invoice and more time to actually be sent. It's literally a matter of pushing two buttons to create it and then hitting the send button without even switching to a different screen. It's impressive. It's a CRM (client relationship management) software, and although it's often used in sales, I don't think too many law firms use it outside of the major firms.

So why do I hate software? Why do I have software blues? Do you know what it's like to enter information for approximately 200 clients? Everything from the court to opposing counsel to a file number, etc. Then we have to get the files associated with the right people. Finally, I have to create all of the templates all over again that let me push two buttons to send an invoice. Once all of that is done, we still have yet to really dig deep into it and figure out how to make it accomplish even cooler things because I have the gut feeling I've only explored about 15% of this. I am tired. I did not think I would be completely abandoning an entire workflow system and creating a new one from scratch TWICE in one year (let alone this dumpster-fire of a year).

Naturally, since I'm getting my Cybersecurity Master's degree, I am considering all of the other stupid things that normal people don't. Do I change the address making it easier for my employees if they get logged out, or leave it complex so it is not easy for hackers to find? Do I require two-factor authentication and complex passwords, or do I need to set fire to my employees who will just write it down anyway? What is the exact level at which I set permissions for my office manager who needs access to both my calendar and email, but needs to leave the forms alone because she was experimenting with them and changed categories I very much needed? How do I clearly explain the workflow process to my paralegal so that she can do her job when I haven't really played with that particular feature too much in depth? And in a sense, this familiarity with software and cybersecurity is what led to the false start a week or so ago when we tried the other software but ultimately found it lacking. I could not do the things I wanted and needed to do, and I thought it was rather dumb that I couldn't customize it the way I wanted. Ultimately, if I'm told software cannot do something, I know there are plenty of other programs out there. If I can't allow people to do their job to the best of their ability but restrict them from changing something that will badly disrupt other areas, I will go elsewhere.

Alexa, what are my security concerns?

 TL;DR- my daughter doesn't trust Alexa because she didn't program it.

First, I need to give you a little context... my daughter is a world champion in robotics at 18 years old. No, seriously. She was on her high school robotics team and they won several notable competitions. One is called "Night at the Museum" where they were playing at the Smithsonian museum and literally practiced directly under the space shuttle. The second notable competition was the year before when she was a junior. Her team went to World's competition. Her team won the Design award at both, which is one of the highest awards given out. It means that they have an exceptional log, can thoroughly explain things in interviews with the judges, and in general, display a high degree of excellence. She was the logger on her team, so she recorded literally everything in a notebook for the judges to review.

At my house, I've started converting all light switches and outlets to smart switches and smart outlets. It's a small thing of beauty because I can walk into my living room and say, "Alexa, turn on living room lights," and the whole room becomes much brighter. In the kitchen, not only can I listen to my favorite music while I'm loading the dishwasher, but if my hands are full or messy, I just say, "Alexa, turn on kitchen lights" and suddenly I have all the task lighting I need. 

But my daughter refuses to speak to it. She'll say, "can you tell it to turn on the lights?" with disdain in her voice as if it is a contemptuous necessity. Sometimes I will tease her and say, "no, but you can" and she will continue to sit in the dark or use the light switch the old fashioned way. The only time she has used it is that she accidentally triggered it one time with something that was in no way the dreaded "A-word" and it started playing a Justin Bieber song; and one time when she asked for the "gummi bear song", which is an abomination of music that should not exist or ever be played. I asked her why she wouldn't use it. She answered: "because I didn't program it".

I can't say she's fully wrong. She is smart enough to program one and she has programmed one before. It's low level, but I certainly couldn't manage it! And it is a little disturbing that it listens to everything (although according to Amazon it almost instantly deletes it if it does not hear its wake-up word). Can I guarantee that's happening? No, not really. My boyfriend told me of a vulnerability whereby someone could take it over if they had sight of it (it is supposed to be fixed now). As I considered my home, I couldn't think of where I would place it that was within reach of an outlet but not within sight of a window. Combine this with the fact that I have several throughout my home to create a wide net where I can exit the living room and head for the stairs to my room, announcing lazily, "Alexa, turn off living room lights... Alexa, turn on bedroom lights" without breaking my stride. Plus, it's concerning that I'm in my last semester of a cybersecurity degree, know all of the risks, use it as more or less a lightswitch, and still shrug off all of the security concerns. But turning on my own lightswitch with my fingers?? Do I look like a Neanderthal?! 

It's very convenient to simply announce, "Alexa, turn off my bedroom lights" instead of getting out from under the very cozy blankets at night. But I understand my daughter's concerns. She's a tech whiz Luddite who enjoys technology very much, but doesn't trust the brains behind it. Her robots were fine because she programmed them to follow her commands from her controller. And maybe that's something where I could learn a lesson. She's done her own analysis, decided she does not trust Amazon, and therefore she will not give it directions. She knows she cannot stop me from using it, but she's not going to actively participate in it because she doesn't want a hand in training something for a company she distrusts. 

"I don't trust it because I didn't program it." For a lot of people, that would be a funny line to toss off, but for her, it's a fully considered, philosophical, principled stance. I may never become swayed enough by it to give up the convenience, but I support young people understanding technology AND I support them taking stands for what they believe in. 

But I swear to god... the Gummi Bears song?! Truly torture!

*This has been Blog 1 of my Current Trends in Cybersecurity class. If you have something to say, let me know in the comments!