Technology

Online Collaboration For Lawyers: Security Issues, Recommendations, And Predictions

Now that encrypted email is off the table, what's a lawyer to do to protect confidential electronic communications?

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Secure communication made the headlines this week, with the announcement that European researchers had discovered major vulnerabilities in the PGP email encryption standard most often used to encrypt email.

The emerging ethics standard

This news was of particular import to lawyers in the wake of the ABA’s Formal Opinion 477 from last May, wherein the Committee concluded that it’s not always reasonable for lawyers to rely on unencrypted email when communicating with clients. As a result, lawyers must assess the sensitivity of information on a case-by-case basis and then choose the most appropriate and sufficiently secure method of communicating and collaborating with clients.

The Committee explained that lawyers have “a variety of options to safeguard communications including, for example, using secure internet access methods to communicate, access and store client information (such as through secure Wi-Fi, the use of a Virtual Private Network, or another secure internet portal)…”

In other words, the bar has been set. Twenty-first century lawyers will increasingly need to assess the nature of their communications with clients and ensure that they are taking adequate security measures to protect confidential electronic communications. But now that encrypted email is off the table, what’s a lawyer to do?

Choosing the right tools

Until the PGP vulnerabilities of encrypted email are remedied, lawyers seeking to securely communicate and collaborate with clients will need to consider and choose alternate methods, a task that isn’t necessarily an easy one. The good news is that there are resources available to help you, such as the newly published Second Edition of “The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together,” co-authored by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell.

Sponsored

The release of this book couldn’t be more timely. It’s a valuable resource that provides an in depth review of collaboration tools. In this guide, the authors address security issues and provide recommendations designed to help you choose the right communication tools for your law firm’s needs.

Guiding principles

For starters, here’s a list of the basic principles that the authors suggest you should keep in mind when choosing collaboration technologies for your law practice:

  1. For better or worse, you already have a system (or systems) for collaboration.
  2. Your technology decisions must be made in the context of and in consideration for the systems you already have in place.
  3. When you select any collaboration tool, it must either (a) improve an existing system or (b) implement a new system that is measurably better than the system it replaces.
  4. Choices about collaboration tools should be made collaboratively.
  5. Technology choices are always more about culture than they are about technology.
  6. What are you hiring the technology to do for you?
The importance of client portals for secure communication

Sponsored

As the authors explain, “a client portal combines the best elements of a modern, versatile public website with the security and control of a private, internal application (which is why) the client portal is a fundamental building block of online collaboration.”

The authors suggest that the client portals built into cloud-based law practice management software are often the obvious choice, particularly for small firms:

“Tools like Clio, Rocket Matter, and MyCase now offer secure client portals as part of their standard services. Out of the box, these portals provide client access to bills, documents, secure messages, tasks, and calendars. Because many lawyers are already using online practice management tools, it makes sense to look here first for client portal options.”

The authors also offered other collaboration options for firms not yet ready to invest in a full-fledged law practice management system, including two of the most popular options, Sharepoint portals and Basecamp. In addition, here are a number of other project management tools to consider that were suggested by the authors:

  • ActiveCollab
  • Asana
  • Atlassian Jira
  • Flow
  • Freedcamp
  • ProjectPlace
  • Proofhub
  • Redbooth
  • Smartsheet
  • Wrike
  • Zoho Project
The future of secure online collaboration

Choosing the right tools for secure communication and collaboration in your law firm won’t be easy. But the time spent will pay off in the long run, since the collaboration choices you make today will necessarily impact your firm down the road. That’s why it’s so important to make educated decisions that will help to lay the groundwork for your firm’s future success. And if you’re not sure where to start, this book is a great resource that can help you make the right long-term collaboration software decisions for your firm.

With that in mind, I leave you with the following words of wisdom from the authors:

“(L)awyers are at a crossroads with their collaboration tools. What worked well before likely will not work in the future. New tools and technologies make it possible for lawyers to work together in better ways…Whichever path you take to using collaboration technologies, we encourage you to get on a path and move forward. Collaboration tools and technologies really do offer better ways to work together for lawyers and those who work with lawyers—especially if we make smart decisions and keep the client’s needs in mind at all times.”

Niki BlackNicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

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