CyberSecurity Month: How Legal Tech Is Helping Firms Against Rising Cyber Threats
Brian Rogers
This cybersecurity month, Brian Rogers, regulatory director at Access Legal, part of The Access Grou(...)
The power of convergence: Harnessing AI and IG for legal excellence – Part II
Chris Giles
Welcome to Part II of our exploration into the intersection of Information Governance (IG) and Artif(...)
Where to start? That is the nagging question facing those tasked with managing a modern investigation involving electronically stored information (ESI). Gone are the days when an ESI investigation simply meant having the IT Department run a rash of search terms across the enterprise email system and farming the results out to a cadre of reviewers for a “quick” three- to six-month turnaround.
Today, data and device proliferation demands anticipatory planning as well as careful and thorough execution to ensure that all means of electronic evidence will be available and accessible, particularly in view of the continuing transition to a predominantly remote workforce driven by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Daily, law firms generate large volumes of paperwork, with letters and forms changing hands via faxes, express mail delivery, and increasingly, in digital formats such as PDF. With everything from internal partner memos and court filings to privileged communications with clients now existing in digital spaces, security is more important than ever. Protecting these documents, not only from outsiders but also from internal misuse, requires a proactive approach to document security.
With that in mind, here are seven ways law firms can take action to better protect sensitive legal documents from misuse and potential exposure.
Given the current economic uncertainties and increased competition, coupled with a dispersed workforce, the need for knowledge management (KM) in law firms is amplified and so, it is no surprise that the function is making a resurgence. Long considered a luxury that only large law could afford, today thanks to technology, KM is supremely affordable. More importantly, the traditional remit of KM – i.e. document retrieval and reuse – has matured to embody the capture of ‘collective experience’ of the firm for competitive advantage.
So how can firms embarking on the adoption of KM as a business-critical function, ensure programme success? Here are five tips.
If one thing is certain, it’s that things remain uncertain. For the next six months at least, continued lockdown restrictions mean that remote working is here to stay.
Throughout lockdown, we have been speaking with leaders of in-house legal teams and, in the process, uncovered a trend of accelerated legal transformation and digitalisation projects. In the early days of the pandemic’s spread, the assumption was that business uncertainty would lead to projects being put on hold and legal tech budgets clawed back. Instead, we’ve found that projects have been reprioritised but not necessarily postponed.
Over the last decade, the legal ecosystem has expanded and evolved. Alternative legal services providers (ALSPs) – with their expertise in undertaking projects at scale and using technology to drive efficiencies – have entered the ring alongside the traditional law firms who possess deep subject matter expertise and dispense valuable strategic counsel.
Extended working hours have long been associated with the legal industry. In fact, a survey of 2,000 trainees and junior associates in the UK revealed that many were finishing work after 8pm on average. However, the work pattern of legal staff is shifting: an increased number are now prioritising flexible working instead of traditional office-based work, to provide a better work-life balance. This, combined with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, has meant law firms have had to adapt, and quickly, to ensure they are fully prepared to support this new way of working.
Career opportunities at top firms will always be extremely competitive - academic achievement alone is not enough to stand out. So how can today’s early-career legal professionals get a leg up on their competition?
Today’s new lawyers are wise to differentiate themselves by embracing arguably the most significant wave of change to hit the legal profession that may not have been discussed in law school: Digital Transformation.
The remote working trend could last beyond the pandemic. Legal IT teams need to focus their attention on getting the right conferencing technology in place for the future
The coronavirus outbreak has forced many firms to embrace working from home at its most extreme. It has also made it necessary for IT departments to evaluate the suitability of their remote meeting tools. For many it’s a wake-up call that their existing solution is not simple, secure or reliable enough for their needs. But while some conferencing tools are found wanting, others are demonstrating their resilience and suitability for remote working.
A monumental change has been experienced across all businesses. A quick chat is disrupted with the odd silence. The picture of the colleague who sits next to you is occasionally pixelated, sometimes frozen. An email is a text, a passed note pings.
Be it for 12 weeks or longer - the digital era is upon us.
2019 saw many law firms working on ‘agile’ projects that focussed on enabling employees to work from multiple locations and devices but 2020 is likely to ask a different question - how ‘agile’ is your data.
On 31 January 2020 the UK will formally adopt the withdrawal agreement and commence preparations for leaving the EU a year later. With all the talk surrounding the various scenarios that could happen, it is useful to look at the potential effect on data transfer and what that might mean for organisations and their IT systems.
How Emotionally Intelligent AI is Changing eDiscovery
There’s no denying that machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming every facet of our lives. We regularly speak with automated customer service representatives and see ads on our Facebook feeds that were chosen specifically for us by AI-powered technology. The eDiscovery industry is being impacted by this new technology as well. Machine learning and AI are becoming crucial to the discovery process, quickly sifting through massive amounts of data so that legal teams can locate relevant information and make quick and accurate review calls.
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