Are your lawyer-client communications safe?
Picture: Lawyers Weekly
Article Excerpt:
While clients will often dictate the nature and mode of communication with their legal counsel, retaining the trust of clientele now hinges on the security of that correspondence in an increasingly digitised world – in which cyber attacks are now the norm.
Our CEO, Shane Bell, shared his insights throughout this article, addressing communication risks, best practices, and how to approach secure platforms:
Issues
NSB Cyber co-founder and chief executive Shane Bell reflected that, prior to COVID-19, “we were still in the world of in-person interactions where we all carried notebooks, occasional teleconference bridges where we all took our own notes, and formal correspondence attached to email, where the digital medium was the transport vehicle only”.
Now, he said, “often the email or the text message is the formal artefact capturing advice or outcomes, video calls cross a raft of different platforms, everything has chat functionality, and we even have AI notetakers producing automated transcripts of everything that we say and do in meetings”.
We create so much more digital content now, Bell observed, scattered across a raft of platforms and locations.
Communication channels
Bell was more direct about such messaging channels: “I think we all know by now that using text messages isn’t acceptable for sensitive information sharing, neither is using free services or open forums. Practices like this really just need to stop.”
Best practice and safer platforms
When it comes to ensuring formal, reliable, and secure client communications and the risks we need to be aware of, Bell reflected that the pathway forward will depend on a firm’s risk appetite for their communication with clients.
“By that I mean, what is your appetite for (potentially) losing control of your information or using the wrong medium that isn’t fit for purpose, versus making your (and your client’s) life a little easier?”
“When clients ask me which communication medium is ‘more secure’, I respond, ‘Are you saying that means it needs to be secure?’ If the answer is nothing, then the medium doesn’t really matter. But, if their answer is more complicated than that, then so is my answer,” he said.
Best practice and safer platforms (continued)
Put simply, Bell surmised, “use robust, secure, properly maintained and fit-for-purpose platforms with security built in, and take time with understanding process, not just blindly trusting the technology and firing things off at pace”.
“Keeping it simple, using layers of security controls, and a well-thought-out process will get the job done every time,” he said.
Source: Lawyers Weekly - Big Law - Wednesday 30 July 2025.
Author: Jerome Doraisamy, Lawyers Weekly
Reference: Are your lawyer-client communications safe?