Risk Update

OCG Adjacent — Law Firm Information Security Trends, Priorities & Attitudes

Posted Dan Bressler

If you’re like me and haven’t budgeted for the always interesting but market-priced annual ILTA technology survey, it’s always nice to gain visibility into the risk issues it explores. So it was great spot this article in Legal I&T Today by ILTA’s publications director, Beth Anne Stuebe: “LegalTech Security Starts and Ends with Education” —

  • “There are many facets to security in legal tech. We see article after article about trends in security, and about how legal is slow to grow or adapt to change. When I started at ILTA, I heard someone casually mention that ‘Law firms were all in a race to be second.’ This implies that not only is adoption of any new tech, product, or service slow, but it’s looked at through binoculars; other firms looking at each other to see what succeeds… and what fails. Akin to not buying a car in the first year, most firms implement change slowly, and security changes even more cautiously, if at all.”
  • Said Christopher Hunt, Director of Technology and Operations at Sugarman Rogers:
    • “The legal industry is a high-profile target for bad actors. Law firms house troves of sensitive and confidential data from their clients, along with information about the employees of the firm, and one bad decision risks exposure to the public and eroding the trust of clients.
    • “Security is crucial to the protection of both data and trust. The industry needs to continue to focus on strategies to ensure partners and employees are operating safely and to lower the risks to clients and colleagues.
    • “This is even more important, and the risks magnified, as organizations manage a hybrid and remote workforce, and balance the security of information against the experience of employees and clients accessing and working with that information.”
  • “Security awareness efforts ted to focus on lawyers and other knowledge workers. This potentially leaves a gap for the specialized security education that may be required for those supporting technology rather than using it. Thus, we must supplement legaltech educational opportunities for those who want to continue to learn and grow their skill sets.”

For more detail, including charts showing perspectives on priorities, user attitudes, cloud adoption priorities and more, see the complete article.