Confidentiality
you can prove.
Managed IT for Utah law firms, built around the one thing a firm cannot lose: client confidence. Document management and practice software kept up, matter access that matches the ethical wall, closings protected from wire fraud, and the security questionnaire your corporate clients send answered from evidence.
Who can open it, and who cannot anymore.
Confidentiality in a firm is an access question before it is a technology question. For every matter, the document system should answer who can see it, what each person can do, and when that changed. Ours does, and the answer is logged.
- The wall is in the software
- Ethical walls and matter teams are permissions, set when the matter opens and reviewed on a schedule, not a memo everyone is trusted to remember.
- Outside people get a folder, not the firm
- Co-counsel, experts, and clients see what is meant for them, for as long as it is meant for them, and nothing else.
- Departures close the same day
- Document system, email, remote access, and devices, off on the last day, from one list.
- Responsible partnerattorney of record full Opens, edits, shares, and sees every download on the matter.
- Associatematter team full Full access while on the team. Removed from the matter the day the staffing changes.
- Paralegalmatter team documents only Documents and the closing checklist. Not billing, not the client’s financials.
- Co-counseloutside the firm one folder, expiring A shared folder, not the matter. Access ends automatically at closing.
- Clientportal their documents, view Sees what is meant for them through the portal, never a link to the file share.
- Former associateleft the firm removed Every login off on the last day, laptop wiped, and the record says when.
- 09:12 Associate opened Purchase Agreement v7
- 09:40 Co-counsel downloaded Schedule 3.2, folder expires at closing
- 11:05 Partner shared Closing Checklist to client portal
- 17:05 Former associate access removed on all systems
The program behind the questionnaire.
The rules ask for reasonable efforts to protect client information, competence with the technology you use, secure communication, and a plan for when something goes wrong. Corporate clients now ask for the same thing in writing, as outside counsel guidelines with a security questionnaire attached. We run the program and keep the evidence, so both answers are the same file.
Litigation holds and retention are part of the same program, so IT knows what cannot be deleted before anyone asks.
- Written security policy, reasonable-efforts standard current current
- MFA on document management, email, and remote access enforced current
- Matter access matches the ethical wall reviewed current
- Encrypted email and client portal whole firm current
- Wire-instruction callback rule on closings in force current
- Departures: access off on the last day 3 this quarter current
- Backup restore test, matter files due in 3 weeks scheduled
- Incident and breach-notice plan rehearsed current
- Client security questionnaires 4 answered current
What the firm protects, how, and who is responsible. Written from what we manage, so every line is something we can show.
Document management permissions set per matter, reviewed on a schedule, and changed the day a conflict or a departure changes them.
Encrypted email and a client portal for anything that should not travel as an attachment, with the firm phone system in the same program.
A callback rule on any change to wire instructions, email protections that catch the spoof, and training the closing team actually remembers.
Document management, email, remote access, and laptops that leave the office. Named accounts, so the audit trail is real.
Matter files and the practice database backed up off site and opened on a schedule, so a failure the week of trial is a restore, not a rebuild.
Who calls whom, what gets preserved, and which clients are told, worked out before it is needed and written into the plan.
Client questionnaires, outside counsel guidelines, and the insurer renewal answered from files we already keep.
Day one: what we usually find.
An inventory, not a pitch. These are the conditions we walk into at most firms, in the order we find them.
- Every matter open to everyone
The document system has one permission: in. Ethical walls exist in a memo, not in the software.
- Email as the filing system
The current version of the agreement is in someone’s sent folder, forwarded to a personal phone on the way to court.
- A closing with no callback rule
Wire instructions changed by an email that looked like the title company. It is the most expensive thing that happens to small firms, and it is preventable.
- A departed associate still in the DMS
They left in March. Their login opened a matter in June.
- Remote desktop open to the internet
Attorneys work from home through a port on the firewall with a password and no second factor. It is the first thing an attacker checks.
- A client questionnaire nobody can answer
A corporate client sends outside counsel guidelines with forty security questions. The firm guesses, or loses the work.
Every associate is already using AI. The question is where the privileged material went.
Research assistants inside the legal platforms, drafting in a chatbot, a copilot summarizing a deposition, and an associate pasting a client’s agreement into a free tool to find the indemnity clause. The bar has spoken on this: competence, confidentiality, and candor still apply. So does the rule that the associate signs the brief, not the tool.
- AI research and drafting inside the legal research platforms
- Contracts and briefs drafted or summarized in free chatbots
- Copilots in Microsoft 365 with access to the whole document store
- Transcripts and discovery pasted into AI tools to be summarized
The research and drafting tools the firm pays for, each with its data terms reviewed and training on your matters turned off, and a rule for what may go in.
A copilot surfaces whatever the person could already open. We fix matter permissions first, so it cannot cross an ethical wall by accident.
Citations checked, facts confirmed, the draft edited by the attorney of record. The file shows what was generated and who approved it.
Where the rules or the engagement call for it, the client knows AI is in use and how their information is handled. It is one paragraph in the engagement letter.
- Privileged documents in free chatbots
- Client identities or settlement terms in personal AI accounts
- Discovery or transcripts in tools with no confidentiality terms
- Trust-account details in any prompt
The AI policy is a page in the firm’s security program, reviewed yearly with the rest of it, and written so an associate can follow it at midnight before a filing.
We already know your stack.
Practice management, document management, and the everyday systems around them.
- Clio, PracticePanther, MyCase, and Smokeball
- NetDocuments, iManage, and Worldox
- Microsoft 365 with Outlook the way lawyers use it
- Cloud moves when the firm is ready, never the week of trial
- E-filing and court portals that behave
- E-discovery platforms such as Relativity, Everlaw, and Logikcull
- E-signature and closing rooms
- Trust accounting with the controls your bar expects
- Encrypted, managed laptops for attorneys on the road
- Scanners, dictation, and PDF workflow
- Conference rooms that connect on the first try
- Phones with a receptionist flow and after-hours handling
We support the software the firm runs and work with its vendors. Our job is that it is fast, that access matches the wall, and that the evidence exists.
What changes for the people in the firm.
The managing partner, the attorneys, and the paralegals and staff each feel it differently. This is what each of them gets.
Reasonable efforts, in writing.
- A security program you can describe to a client and hand to the bar.
- Client security questionnaires answered from evidence, in days.
- One bill, one number, and no surprise during a trial.
The file, from anywhere, only yours.
- Document management that is fast in the office and on the road.
- MFA that takes seconds, not a password on a card.
- AI research tools that are approved, not improvised.
Fewer things to chase.
- Scanners, e-filing, and e-signature that work the first time.
- A portal for client documents instead of a shared inbox.
- New hires ready on day one, departures closed the same day.
Most firms land on Hardened.
Same plans as every SeriousIT client. Client confidentiality and the questionnaires that come with corporate work are what a firm needs, so Hardened is where most firms belong.
One team for the whole firm.
Phones with a receptionist flow, fiber to the office, and the cabling and access control for a move or a second office, from the same people who run your IT.
Firm phones
Hosted phones with a receptionist flow, voicemail to email, and mobile apps so attorneys answer on the firm number from anywhere.
Business phonesBusiness fiber
UTOPIA Fiber for the office, supported by the team that runs your network, so document management and video stop waiting.
Business fiberMoves and second offices
Structured cabling, door access, and conference rooms built to the same standard as the first office, managed after install.
InfrastructureStraight answers.
Can you answer a client’s security questionnaire for us?
Yes. Outside counsel guidelines and client questionnaires are answered from evidence we already keep. For most firms the first one takes days, and the next one takes an afternoon.
Can you set up ethical walls in our document system?
Yes. Matter-level permissions in NetDocuments, iManage, Clio, and the others, reviewed on a schedule and changed the day a conflict or a departure changes them.
What do you do about wire fraud?
A callback rule on any change to wire instructions, email protections that catch the spoofed domain, and short training the closing team keeps. It is the most preventable loss in legal.
Our attorneys work from home and court. Is that a problem?
Not when it is done right. Managed, encrypted laptops, MFA, and a secure path to the firm instead of a remote desktop port on the firewall.
Can we use AI tools?
Yes, inside a policy. Approved tools with their confidentiality terms reviewed, permissions fixed so a copilot cannot cross a wall, and a rule that the attorney verifies and signs.
Do you handle litigation holds?
We handle the IT side: what is preserved, where, and for how long, so a hold is a setting and a record, not a hope.
Start with a confidentiality review.
Send us your current bills and the last security questionnaire a client sent you. We come back with what is exposed, what the answers would need to be, and what consolidating would cost.