Digital transformation is changing how people work. But the legal industry lags behind in adopting these tools and reaping the benefits.
Digital transformation affects your bottom line. It automates the admin out of your day so you can focus on the most valuable work you do. In this series we’ll explore how you can take your firm through a digital transformation project from digital client onboarding, to security, communication, and delivering an outstanding client experience.
One of the main concerns for any modern law firm should be the security of their and their customers' data. But email, the main communication channel in the legal sector, is shockingly insecure. 96% of all cybercrime is committed using email.
In recent years two-factor authentication and password managers have improved things, but with cybercrime getting more common and more sophisticated every year this is still not enough.
One fundamental threat is that your emails don't just go to your client. They have to travel across all kinds of networks and servers, where anyone could be reading them, before reaching the inbox. This journey exposes the information to potential threats at various steps along the way. Your law firm handles valuable data, and the servers hosting it are prime targets for these attackers.
The fundamental flaw
We can make email more secure through the use of a firewall or security package. But these do not overcome the fact that email was never designed with any form of security in mind. It was developed in the 1970s for ARPANET, the internet's experimental prototype, which was a high-trust environment with little need for security; every message was readable to anyone monitoring the traffic passing through their bit of the network, and the underlying technology hasn't changed to this day.
If you think securing your firm's connection is enough, think again. A 2019 report found that 91% of law firms were at risk of having their website address used to send spam, phishing attacks or otherwise fraudulent emails. Over 80% were dependent on at least one service with a vulnerability well-known to hackers, and 79% had at least one domain registered to an employee's personal email address, posing a significant threat to the continuity of the site and the business.
The SRA found that in the first half of 2020, two and a half million pounds had been stolen from firms by cybercriminals. Since then the problem has become even worse: cybercrime grew by 20% over that year, ransomware attacks grew by 80% in the third quarter of 2020 alone.
Thinking outside the box
Firms try to throw money at this problem, patching it over with expensive tools to secure emails. But only a few zoom out and consider that the underlying technology is the problem. Digital transformation tools such as end-to-end encrypted messaging—where nobody but your client can read your messages—are the quickest, most accessible way to solve this.
The Link App offers encrypted instant messaging with the same security expected of UK banking apps. If you've had to dictate a code from your phone to your computer, you'll know there's often a tradeoff between security and convenience, but our platform makes every interaction between you and your client—from onboarding, to digital ID checks, to document sharing and e-signature—as quick and easy as possible, seamlessly operating across any matter type and all fully-branded as your firm.
Book a short demo to see why 75% of lawyers who do begin transforming their firm using our product within 30 days. Find out how you can easily make steps towards a digital offering at your firm today.
Other blogs in this series:
Digital Transformation: Speed and Profit
Privacy, Security, and Convenience
The Secret to Work Efficiency? Instant Messaging
How Can You Attract More Clients and Keep Them?
How Can You Stay on Top of Client Communication?
Originally published 08 / Jul / 2021
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