Companies in the cloud starting to involve their lawyers for advice

Monday, June 07, 2010

As employment of cloud computing continues to become a major trend among companies, many have begun to incorporate their legal departments for advice, InformationWeek states.

The report mentions that with since the cloud is a partnership with an outside party, which runs the managed network, involving sensitive areas like IT functionality and the handling of confidential information shared on the network, the legal implications are great.

Informationweek states that one company CIO told it recently "my legal department has suddenly taken an interest in the cloud," when the company's IT and legal departments had stayed in their own areas in the past.

The report states that legal advice can aid certain areas of cloud engagement. For cloud performance, legal teams should study and review warranties with third-parties regarding the functionality of their cloud services. Also, cloud continuity is important. Legal departments must review its company's precedings after the contract with the outsourcing company ends. Lastly, issues pertaining to privacy have become incredibly important. Cases involving e-discovery, confidentiality and data ownership become greater and more complicated when dealing with the cloud. Making sure which information goes into the cloud can aid the complexity of these cases.

If companies do follow this advice, lawyers and IT executives could be seeing a lot more of each other soon. More than 20 percent of companies planning to move to the cloud during the next four years, CloudTweaks reports.