Themis Solutions reports, “The results of our inaugural [2010] Apple in Law Firms Survey are in… The survey received 835 responses, and gave a useful sampling of responses across law firms of all sizes as well as from law students.”
Themis Solutions Inc., the provider of Clio, is a Vancouver, BC-based web services company which provides online practice management solutions to law firms.
What is your primary computer’s operating system?
What most influenced your decision to select Apple over PC products?
If you had to re-implement your office’s IT needs, would you choose to use Macs again?
What mobile devices do you currently use?
Which, if any, of the following mobile devices do you plan on switching to in the next year?
More results, including information about iPad use, in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]
Lawyers are the most reasonable people and they know which phone is trust worthy.
Have to say I’m a bit shocked. I didn’t realize Macs were so popular in the legal profession.
Sensible people.
Is it anti-Apple to say, Kill all the lawyers.?
(except mine; he’s a nice guy.)
Lawyers are aware of the dangers of insecure software.
Cue the lawyer jokes…..
Remember the “Love you” virus? My lawyer was on Windows and got infected, had his inbox randomly emailed to his entire client list.
He’s been on a Mac ever since. His firm switched shortly after he did. When the iPhone came out, they were early adopters. The reason I was given is that there time is too valuable to not be.
Lawyers are liars. Not sure what to make of these results.
Having recently graduated from law school (unemployed, of course), I can verify that the overwhelming choice of laptop in my school was Apple, and most of those were Pros.
MacSharks (Lawyers) going for reliable, efficient, productive systems to make even more $$$$!!!!
Wonder if they own AAPL stocks too?
Buy!!!
These numbers are bullshit! I wish they were true, but they are not.
Law firms and lawyers are still very PC-centric. Macs are making inroads, but the Greenland ice sheet will probably melt before the majority of attorneys are using Macs. How do I know, I’m an IT manager at a law firm that happens to be 100% Apple and not many firms like ours exist yet.
So where did these numbers come from? Well Clio, the firm doing the survey, provides net-based time and billing solutions. Their products are primarily used by Mac users because the time and billing software market is not mature like it is on the PC side.
Thus, most Clio users are likely Mac users and if you survey your user base who are primarily Mac users you will likely find–you guessed it, that they are Mac users.
So don’t think lawyers are trend setters–they are definitely not.
@84 Mac Guy
Either provide evidence for your claim that “Their products are primarily used by Mac users because the time and billing software market is not mature like it is on the PC side” or get the heck out.
Well, the ones I know and have seen use Windows. They have also purchased the Android, ummm….
Not what I expected to see. Perhaps it is a younger sampling of the legal profession.
Hahhahahah, makes one wonder how many of these lawyers are under Apple’s payroll serving ‘diligently’ to fight off the gazillion law suits Apple goes through every bloody year over every product and service?
@JakeB
Are you involved in the legal profession? Have you gone to IT legal conferences every years (ABA’s TechShow)? Have you tried the Clio software or other SaaS software for lawyers? Have you spend years researching what types of time-billing software is available for Macs and PCs?
If you answered “no” to any other these then you know less about the subject than I do and you should get the heck out.
BTW, if you have a better explanation for these terribly skewed and bogus user numbers I’m happy to hear it.
I know my Attorneys use Mac’s but their office assistants use PC’s. Now if we could just get may bankers on board we’d have something.
Windows insecurity gives lawyers “plausible deniability”.
I expect most of the firm to be using Windows and only the head honcho has a Mac squirreled away from view with all the real secrets safely encrypted.
That’s how the FBI is run, because you never know who will turn on you and you need to be able to observe the rank and file covertly sometimes.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.
every attorney I know still uses WordPerfect because of the “reveal codes” ability.
That goes for my dad, my older brother, and my ex-boss.
When Pages offers ‘reveal codes’ in the way they are used to using it in wordperfect, they’ll switch. Landslide.
Windows insecurity gives banks “plausible deniability” as well.
Until banks start using a *nix based operating system, it’s best for everyone not to do any sort of online or ATM banking with funds they are not comfortable losing, Mac or PC.
Don’t enable any sort of “overdraft” to your meager checking/online/ATM account from your substantial savings account for instance, make transfers in person instead. This way any losses in your non-connected savings account is entirely the banks fault.
If you place your large funds into the ATM/checking/online environment and experience a loss from a hacker, your bank will not reimburse you for the losses as they don’t know if you intentionally transferred the funds or not and certainly not going to subject themselves to this sort of scam as people will quickly try to double their money with fake claims.
I think there are kernels of truth in all this. As an in-house counsel, formerly an outhouse counsel, I don’t think there is any question that the industry is still PC-centric. There are in fact significant pockets of Mac use, and an increasing penetration due to the iPod/iPhone/iPad halo effect. Sunday night, I received separate emails from two different outhouse counsel from two different firms. The sig line on their messages to me read “Sent from my iPad.”
I suspect the Clio data is skewed by their likely respondent profile, but as I said, I think we are seeing individualized and small firm inroads. But it will be a long time before large law firms, especially those with significant tax and finance consequences associated with their systems investment, start making Apple choices at the enterprise level.
Kabes, what is a “reveal code”?
@ 84 Mac Guy said:
“Are you involved in the legal profession? Have you gone to IT legal conferences every years (ABA’s TechShow)? Have you tried the Clio software or other SaaS software for lawyers? Have you spend years researching what types of time-billing software is available for Macs and PCs?
If you answered “no” to any other these then you know less about the subject than I do and you should get the heck out.
BTW, if you have a better explanation for these terribly skewed and bogus user numbers I’m happy to hear it.”
I think if you asked these questions of Clio, their answer to all of them would be “Yes”.
You’re calling them liars (?) Then you should call them out on it, as one legal related IT professional to another.
info@goclio.com
1-888-858-CLIO
I was the IT Manager of an all-Mac-based law firm for 5 years and Macs are great in law firms. We used about 500 Macs, but 5 PCs for billing only.
Macs are great for searching for documents based on a large range of attributes. Law firms produce and track masses of documents, thus the comment about red tape.
I recently ran into the head of a law firm that I consulted with. He said he listened to me and tried a Mac…then another, and another.
Lawyers may not really be my cup of tea (some of them) but they do have a knack for recognize class and a good suit…or is that a good class suit?