Every year, the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center conducts a survey to gauge the use of legal technology by attorneys in the United States. This year’s report was released this past Friday, and as always, I was particularly interested in Volume VI, titled Mobile Lawyers. No survey is perfect, but the ABA tries hard to ensure that its survey has statistical significance, and every year this is one of the best sources of information on how attorneys use technology. Note that the survey was conducted from January to May, so even though we are looking at these numbers in late Summer of 2015, remember that the survey answers were given in the beginning of 2015.

My thoughts on the prior reports are located here: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010. The numbers in this year’s report are similar to what we saw in 2014; once again, about 60% of all attorneys use an iPhone, and about 40% of all attorneys use an iPad.

Six out of ten attorneys use an iPhone

For the past few years, the survey has been relatively consistent in revealing that about 9 out of every 10 lawyers use a smartphone for law-related tasks while away from the primary workplace. In 2014 and 2013, the number was 91%; in 2015 the number is 90%. As was the case in the last four years, once again in 2015 there was a slight correlation between law firm size and smartphone use. For example, in 2015, 16.9% of solo attorneys do not use a smartphone and 12.9% of attorneys in a firm of 2-9 do not use a smartphone. On the other hand, in firms with 50-99 attorneys, every single attorney reported using a smartphone, and at firms with 100 or more attorneys the numbers were about 95% or more of their attorneys reported using a smartphone. As a whole, though, it is fair to say that the survey consistently shows around nine out of every ten attorneys use a smartphone.

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