Biglaw

Biglaw Firm Turns Into A Hotbed Of Finger Pointing When Associates Read Internal Emails Not Meant For Their Eyes

Associates are in hot water after snooping in the firm's document management platform.

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man and woman pointing at each other against. Business conflictIt’s never a good look for a Biglaw firm when something goes from internal gossip to reportable news. But what probably started as some relatable, if nosy, office whispering has devolved into a whole thing in the South African offices of Norton Rose Fulbright.

It seems some enterprising associate(s) discovered they could access confidential emails and other sensitive internal documents that were saved, but not locked, on the firm’s document management platform. Law.com International has the IT-specs:

Norton Rose bought a license for iManage’s full product suite in the early 2000s after it switched from rival software Hummingbird, citing the need for a robust system architecture and collaboration functionality.

FileSite, a major collaborative function of the iManage package, gives staff access to their colleagues’ emails and folders—except when a digital lock is activated, according to Norton Rose employees. Some of the directors and other lawyers who are not tech-savvy do not usually activate the necessary privacy measures, they added.

When the firm figured out that associates could, and apparently did, access these confidential docs, they went into damage control mode. There was an internal meeting:

According to sources, the management team held a brief meeting with a group of junior lawyers at the firm on October 28, where it gave those implicated in the IT probe until midday on November 1 to disclose the amount of information they accessed, the frequency of access and what they did with the information.

They were told those who came forward with full disclosure would be offered forgiveness and leniency, but those who withheld further information about their involvement could face disciplinary action, according to someone close to the matter.

At the meeting, the junior attorneys were reportedly told, “There can be no excuse for reading something pertinently marked as confidential and which was not addressed to you.” And it was followed up with an email from the firm CEO that read, “An internal investigation has confirmed that some associates and candidate attorneys indeed accessed information and directors’ non-matter folders over a projected period of time. We have an extensive list of who accessed what.” But despite saying they had the list of who accessed what and when, associates were still urged to come forward if they’d done so.

All of this has created some understandable tension at the firm. An insider told Law.com, “People are scared and anxious. They also feel that they are being treated unfairly.” Another NRF source pointed the finger not at the snooping junior attorneys but at the senior attorneys who didn’t protect the confidential material.

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Another lawyer involved explained that the firm’s policy specifies that it is the responsibility of the person saving a document on iManage to secure it. “It’s not the associates’ fault for seeing it when it is saved on a public platform,” the lawyer said.

A firm spokesperson confirmed that some attorneys had accessed internal documents but said no client information was compromised. They also said the matter is resolved. Which, it may be! But some of those bad feelings about how the matter was handled are sure to linger.

Kathryn Rubino HeadshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].

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