Thin is in. Web-based or "thin" applications are clearly the wave of the future. Web-based enterprise portals and integrated web-based applications offer law firms the ability to search, retrieve and present customized content and information as never before.

Because of the benefits of web-based apps and the desire to be at the forefront of technology, law firms are considering implementing a complete diet of web-based applications. The "available anytime, anywhere" promises they offer seem particularly attractive for an ever-growing segment of the legal population - the mobile lawyer. While "thinning down" is definitely advantageous, a crash diet of thin applications may not be the healthiest solution for your traveling attorney.

Competition for legal clients is fierce, and the practice base of many firms is shifting from a regional to a national or even international scope. This shift has resulted in attorneys traveling more and firms expanding to acquire satellite offices across the country and the world. Many law firms are looking to web-based applications as a means of reducing IS department headaches in the support of remote offices and mobile lawyers. For this purpose, web apps provide many advantages:

• Virtually no client install issues
• Fewer network and desktop operating system issues - only the correct browser type and version are needed
• Accessibility anywhere an Internet connection is present, reducing issues related to supporting remote access solutions such as Citrix Metaframe.
• Deployment and upgrades are easier for the IS department to execute

Advantages for the IS department do not necessarily translate into advantages for the end user. Remember - the goal is to provide your attorneys with convenient, useful tools. Not unlike the "be-fore and after" promises of a fad diet - the promises of getting "thin" with web applications may be misleading. Consider the following possible drawbacks when implementing such a strategy.

The Myth of the Ubiquitous, Reliable, High-Speed Internet Connection
Most marketing brochures for web-based applications tout "allows access to the application anytime, from anywhere". While the statement is true, it suggests that such Internet connections are readily available and that they will provide sufficient and reliable bandwidth for ideal usage of the application.

A fast Internet connection is probably available for your remote offices. However, your road warriors may find such high-speed connections few and far between. While they are becoming more prevalent (many hotels are now offering them, and a couple of the major airlines will soon have them in first class), fast Internet connections are not omni-present. When they are available, they are often expensive. And, due to issues with your ISP, your data lines or Internet congestion, "high-speed" connections can be anything but high-speed.

Although a high-speed connection is not required for accessing a web-based app, the reality is that many graphically-based or client-side Java-based web applications are insufferably slow (and often unusable) with a dial-up or low-speed connection. For "core" desktop applications such as e-mail / PIM, Word Processing/Document Management and Time Entry, using web-based applications via a dial-up connection is much less functional and productive than using a "fat-client" application on a notebook computer and synchronizing the data once a high-speed connection is available.

Web-Based Applications Are Not Available in "Offline" Mode
A traveling attorney never knows when he/she will need access to a mission-critical application and the data contained within that app. When rushing through an airport or while in the offices of another firm, finding an Internet "kiosk" or an available connection is not often possible. Thin applications are designed so that minimal data resides on the client end. Once the connection to the Internet is terminated, so is the access to the application. This reality can be inconvenient and frustrating for the attorney requiring the data.

Many Web-Based Apps Have a Reduced Feature Set
Adding sophisticated user-oriented features through a browser-based interface can be a difficult development issue. Some of the more advanced logic developed into traditional "fat client" software is extremely difficult to mirror in a thin application. For this reason, many web-based applications have a reduced feature set in comparison to their fat client counterparts. This can be a roadblock for the mobile attorney who has come to depend on full-featured apps.

Potential Security Issues
Access to firm data from the web poses security risks. Firms need to protect their critical data on their intranets, extranets and enterprise portals with proper firewall protection and security token cards. Traveling attorneys should be trained not to leave cached data on the kiosk or workstation they have used to access the firm's site.

A Well Rounded Diet Works Best
Web-based applications will eventually be appropriate for all firm end-users as the infrastructure of the Internet strengthens, web development tools expand and more legal software vendors create applications and API's for interfacing with web portals. At present, however, the ideal platform for firms with traveling attorneys and remote offices is a balanced diet of traditional "fat" applications, web-based applications (when appropriate) and PDA applications.

Web based applications have many advantages, but offering these apps as the sole option for traveling attorneys is not the best approach -- particularly for your core applications such as e-mail, document management and time entry. Ideally, firms will select software applications that have access to all of these platforms. The user will then have the option to choose which application and platform is best suited for each situation. In this way, traveling attorneys can benefit from the advantages of being "thin" without the negative side effects of such a diet.

About our author...

Tim Kenney, Esq. is Manager of Strategic Relationships for Advanced Productivity Software. Tim can be reached at tkenney@aps-soft.com or by phone (800) 783-9231.