As law firms hold a lot of sensitive client information, data privacy is a huge issue. Clients are worried about their data. They want to know that it is private — there is a lot of news about data breaches, and firms have to pay more now for data security — these measures are more for the clients than anyone else. Whoever the "clients" are, they are interested in hearing that their private, personal, business, and otherwise confidential information is safe.
Data privacy is an important legal issue. Many jurisdictions have privacy regulations on the books — GDPR, HIPAA, etc. — and the fines for violations can be quite high. Don't be "that guy." Again, this is the sort of thing a particularly ethical firm might mention. European firms market that they are "ethical" all the time nowadays — it probably says something about the culture.
Legal Data Privacy Regulations and Compliance
Regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are major factors affecting legal practices. The GDPR explicates the obligations of businesses collecting, processing, and storing personal data, while HIPAA refers primarily to medical data disclosure and patient information protection. Law firms in compliance must be astute navigating these legalities because of the sheer amount of confidential client data they hold.
By themselves, non-compliance fines can be significant. In cases involving major (and contentious) law firms, fines are extremely high and might result in the invocation of chargebacks. GDPR fines alone, absent other strictures, can top $10.6 million or 2% of a company's global revenues - whichever is higher. Formal inquiries and class action lawsuits are also costs associated with attempting to maintain an unworkable client/firm relationship. Whatever the instigating circumstances, loss of trust becomes an issue because representations, previously made, are now disputed — a bad situation for any law firm.
The Role of Cybersecurity in Legal Practices
Law firms have access to deep and interesting information. This makes them attractive to hackers. There are now plenty of news stories about law firms that have experienced phishing attacks, where emails were sent to employees and other authorized users and tricked them into revealing usernames, passwords, and other sensitive data to hackers. Many of us have personally experienced a phishing attack or someone who has suffered a ransomware attack that locked up their data in encrypted form and refused to un-encrypt it until the hacker was paid a ransom in untraceable bitcoin.
As we have seen in the media, data breaches can result in a loss of client trust, significant financial loss, legal malpractice, even significant career repercussions in some cases – but it doesn’t have to be that way.
The law firms that make an effort to instill a culture of security that includes (among other things) cybersecurity best practices, regular training that everyone recognizes when they’ve received a phishing email but isn’t tricked into giving away their passwords, reliable backups and restorations that provide resilience to a ransomware attack, software kept fully updated and patched, EXCEPT where there is an express, overriding reason not to do so.
Leveraging Legal Technology for Enhanced Data Privacy
Technology not only plays a role in analyzing data but has also come a long way in developing mechanisms to protect sensitive data, which has become crucial in the legal sector due to the nature of the data being gathered. Legal professionals now have access to software products that allow data to be kept in an encrypted — or encoded — format so that the data is less likely to be viewed by an unauthorized user.
Secure communications applications now allow communication to take place in an environment that is much less prone to be the source of a data breach. Practically all digital storage and communications services are moving toward more practically impenetrable formats.
The point here is to provide just one more bit of reasoning in support of my theory that digitization of legal services is not going to result in a great reduction in the number of legal jobs; it is only going to reduce the number of unadaptable legal professionals.
Building a Culture of Data Privacy in Legal Firms
In law firms, where arguably more than half the work is dealing directly with sensitive client information, one cannot overstate the importance of collections-standard training for staff. Part of achieving GDPR-prima-facie compliance with laws such as the HIPAA or GDPR is carrying out this minimum level of training. Staff should know what the major legal requirements are and what the most familiar unethical practices look like. Employees need to know that there are many case examples of senior legal staff who have lost jobs as a result of a data breach. The firm should hold training sessions once a year at the very least.
Any firm should also have a written policy document for data privacy. The firm should determine (ideally in advance of a GDPR investigator doing this for them) what they consider to be an “adequate” level of collections procedure for data privacy. They should create a written procedure note and ensure that all staff who work in this area have read and signed off (by email?) that they have read this policy and comprehended it. Given the strict application of most concepts in data privacy, a standalone data privacy policy would not be suitable to a corporate client for "private/third-party" uses. But if repeated insistently often enough ("like Dallas Donuts," said Starsky/Angelino), hopefully it will eventually penetrate that the firm is legally obliged to comply with GDPR.
Understanding Data Privacy in the Legal Context
In legal practices, lawyers often deal with very sensitive information—personal data, financial records, and confidential communications—that can often be severely damaging if it falls into the wrong hands. Legal professionals are also bound by certain ethical obligations to maintain client confidentiality—it's not only "reputationally" a good idea to do so but it is also often a legal requirement. Lawyers continue to fulfill their traditional duties of safekeeping a client’s property and acting competently; but today’s tools include a greater understanding (and mitigation) of the types of potential data errors that can occur during the lifespan of the data.
Data privacy is a fundamental concern in the legal profession. Many legal professionals handle sensitive client information and documents that must be extremely well-protected. So, legal data privacy compliance is also compliance with other well-known data privacy regulations, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), that strictly guard data ownership.
Clients trust must be a top priority; therefore, an attorney or firm should consider data protection of significant importance. The way that data privacy is achieved is by assessing cybersecurity through encryption strength and the format of cloud storage (if it is used). There are plenty of advanced technologies out there that can help each person achieve this.
