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The Law Firm Cybersecurity and Confidentiality Guide

Practical controls to protect privileged files, stop wire fraud and keep attorneys working securely from anywhere.

A map of where client confidences live and the control each place needs
A wire and trust account verification protocol you can adopt this week
A self-assessment checklist for accounts, email, devices, data and people
A 90-day plan, a short glossary and questions to ask any IT provider

11 pages25-item checklist30/60/90-day plan

Cover of The Law Firm Cybersecurity and Confidentiality Guide

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Cover and two sample pages of The Law Firm Cybersecurity and Confidentiality Guide, a free 11-page PDF guide from Alpiba with a 25-point checklist — A look inside: the cover and two pages from the 11-page PDF.

What's inside

Inside the guide.

Law firms hold exactly what attackers want: privileged communications, deal terms, personal and financial details, and client funds moving through trust accounts. Most incidents at firms don't start with sophisticated hacking. They start with a reused password, a convincing email or a laptop that was never encrypted.

This guide turns confidentiality from a principle into a list of controls you can check. Work through the five sections, score your firm with the checklist and use the 90-day plan to sequence the fixes. It is written for firm leadership and administrators, and it is not legal or ethics advice: decisions about your obligations belong to your firm and its counsel. If you'd like help with any of it, Alpiba offers a free 30-minute assessment.

Know where client confidences live
Stop wire and trust account fraud
Secure court days, home and client sites
Retention, legal holds and e-discovery readiness
The first hours of an incident
The checklist25 items in 5 groups
Questions to ask any IT provider10 questions
Your 30/60/90-day plan3 phases, step by step
Plain-English glossary8 terms

Read Part 1 free

The opening chapter of the guide, in full. The rest of the guide, the checklist and the 90-day plan are in the PDF.

Know where client confidences live

Confidential information spreads far beyond the document management system. List every place it lives, then check that each one has an owner, access controls and a backup.

Where confidential information hides
Location	Common gap	Control to check
Email and shared mailboxes	No MFA, shared passwords	MFA for every user, delegated access instead of shared logins
Document management system	Firm-wide access to every matter	Matter-level permissions and ethical walls
Practice and billing systems	Separate passwords, missed in offboarding	Single sign-on with MFA
Laptops and home computers	Unencrypted or personally owned	Firm-managed, encrypted devices
Phones and texts	Client data mixed with personal apps	Managed apps and remote wipe of firm data
File-sharing links	Links that never expire	Expiring, authenticated links
Former employees' accounts	Deleted too early or never disabled	Disabled on departure, preserved per policy
Backups	Stored on the same network	Immutable, off-site and tested

Pay special attention to the last two rows. A former employee's mailbox may be the only copy of a key exchange, and a backup on the same network as everything else will likely be encrypted alongside it.

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A preview

A sample from the guide.

Here's the first checklist group and a few of the questions. The full guide has all 25 checklist items, 10 questions and the 90-day plan.

Accounts and access

MFA enforced on email, document management, practice management and remote access
No shared logins; shared mailboxes use delegated access
Matter-level permissions and ethical walls enforced by the system
Admin accounts kept separate from everyday accounts
Departing staff lose access the same day, with their data preserved per policy

Questions to ask any IT provider

1How do you protect your own administrative access to our systems?
2Who watches for suspicious sign-ins and forwarding rules at night and on weekends?
3What is your average first response time, and what happens in the first hour of an incident?
4How would you help us respond if a wire went to the wrong account?

+ 6 more questions in the full guide

Get the full guide Related: Law Firms & Legal Practices

IT for law firms at a glance. Challenges: confidentiality is non-negotiable, email fraud and impersonation, case and document tools must stay up and work happens everywhere. How Alpiba helps: confidential data protection, email security & training, case management & document tools and secure remote access. Frameworks: NIST CSF, ISO 27001 and SOC 2. — IT for law firms at a glance.

Your first 30 days

Where to start this month.

The guide's 30/60/90-day plan begins with these steps. Assign an owner to each and review progress every two weeks.

1Enforce MFA everywhere and remove shared logins
2Adopt the callback rule and a second approver for payments
3Turn on forwarding-rule alerts and publish DMARC
4Inventory devices, systems and every place client files live

Key terms in plain English

Business email compromise (BEC): A scam in which attackers use a hijacked or look-alike email account to redirect payments or steal information.
DMARC: An email authentication policy that tells receiving servers how to treat mail that fails checks, making your domain harder to spoof.
Ethical wall: An information barrier that blocks specific people from matters where they have a conflict.
Legal hold: A preservation setting that stops relevant email and files from being deleted while a matter requires them.
Conditional access: Sign-in rules that allow, challenge or block access based on the user, device, location and risk.
Data loss prevention (DLP): Policies that detect and stop sensitive information from leaving approved channels.
Metadata: Information about a file or message, such as author, dates and recipients, that e-discovery often needs intact.
Tabletop exercise: A guided discussion in which your team walks through a realistic incident to test its response plan.