Ward Hadaway Selects Workshare for Secure File Sharing and Collaboration

UK News

05
Aug
2014

Editor

Ward Hadaway, one of the UK’s leading regional law firms, has today announced it has selected Workshare to enable its lawyers to accurately compare and share high-value documents. The adoption of Workshare addresses the firms requirement to detect and remove hidden data (metadata) in documents before they are shared, reducing the risk of sensitive information being inadvertently shared by employees.

With offices in Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester, Ward Hadaway selected Workshare to help address security concerns regarding sharing large, commercially-valuable documents across distributed teams of lawyers, as well as opposing counsel and clients outside of the corporate network. Ward Hadaway has provisioned Workshare Professional 8 for 350 lawyers and secretaries.

David Bullock, Director of IT at Ward Hadaway, commented, “Workshare gives us the confidence that all documents or confidential content we send is cleaned of any hidden metadata. We deal with highly valuable and sensitive information, which if exposed could be both damaging to our clients, and the firm’s reputation. From a risk point of view, this is a vital part of the tool kit that every law firm needs to have today.”

“Given the highly competitive nature of the legal world, efficiency and confidentiality are paramount. Lawyers understand the importance of comparing documents and stripping metadata but are often under pressure and need simple and quick applications to automate processes. Workshare integrates seamlessly with Outlook and other Office applications, making the whole comparison and protection process part of their normal workflow.”

Workshare allows administrators to set permissions to control how content and documents are accessed once shared, such as preview only or time-restricted access. This ensures that shared content is secure and auditable at all times, regardless of device or location.

Anthony Foy, CEO of Workshare, commented, “Hidden metadata poses a real threat to legal firms that are dealing with sensitive and confidential documents. Lawyers and their firms often don’t know that this data exists, which in itself is a huge threat when sending documents externally. Workshare integrates with Ward Hadaway’s existing processes and workflows, providing a secure end-to-end collaboration capability that allows their lawyers to be more productive; while enabling the firm to better serve its clients’ needs.”