Data accessibility and e-discovery: Streamlining legal work with IT support
The UK’s legal sector is a global leader in service provision and innovation. UK firms take 7 of the top 10 spots of Europe’s most innovative law firms and 6 for digital. Comprehensive IT support for solicitors is now critical for an industry undergoing seismic change.
For today’s solicitors, streamlined data accessibility is vital. In an industry bound by rigorous professional regulations and ethical standards, this must be balanced by robust data security practices. IT support for law firms helps achieve this, enabling them to deliver leading-edge customer service, improve productivity and safeguard legal data while helping to maintain the UK’s position as the largest legal services market in Europe.
Table of contents
- Harnessing the value of your legal data
- 5 document management challenges for law firms
- Streamlining data accessibility and e-discovery with legal tech integrations
- Transforming legal data management with managed IT services
- Futureproofing your legal firm
- Leveraging data for growth
Harnessing the value of your legal data
Law firms have always managed large amounts of information. The shift to online documentation creates an enormous trove of data to manage, organise, locate and analyse.
Much of this data is confidential and classed as ‘Personal Data’, defined by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as data that ‘relates to an identified or identifiable individual’ (PII), falling under GDPR.
In a sector where data has become essential for compliance, efficiency and improved client outcomes, IT support for solicitors is now critical in streamlining document management.
5 document management challenges for law firms
IT support for legal firms can help you overcome these common document management issues:
1. Managing data overload
As online files multiply, managing data becomes harder. Documents are often stored across various platforms, making it difficult and time-consuming for solicitors to locate information.
Time is money for legal professionals, and solicitors must be able to locate the documents they need quickly to work as efficiently as possible.
2. Accelerating e-discovery
Electronically Stored Information (ESI) is now central to the litigation process, regulatory compliance and audits. Manual techniques are time-consuming, prone to errors and duplications, and no longer up to the task of meeting tight investigation deadlines.
With the growth of ESI data, e-discovery is no longer the preserve of large city law firms. It has become standard practice for solicitors to record their phone calls, which must be stored and accessible for legal practices of all sizes.
3. Document storage and retrieval
Holding on to unnecessary data aggravates the document-handling challenges faced by legal firms. It hinders document retrieval and e-discovery, taking up legal professionals' time.
Retaining unneeded data broadens the attack surface for cybercriminals, increasing the risk and impact of a data breach. The costs of storing this non-essential data will soon mount up.
UK GDPR’s ‘Storage Limitation Principle’ stipulates that personal data must not be kept longer than necessary. Organisations must be able to justify why they’re keeping it.
4. Safeguarding legal data
With law firms holding large amounts of sensitive data, they’re an attractive target for cybercriminals. A recent survey found that successful cyber attacks against UK law firms rose 77% over the past year.
Cyber attacks often lead to data breaches, compromising client confidentiality and infringing GDPR. Breaches can lead to a reprimand or fine from the ICO.
5. Maintaining industry and regulatory compliance
Solicitors are bound by stringent regulations and professional ethics, including a duty of confidentiality. They depend on their reputation to build and maintain client relationships.
Law firms often hold ‘Special Category Data’ revealing sensitive details such as racial or ethnic origins or religious beliefs. There are also specific rules relating to criminal convictions.
Streamlining data accessibility and e-discovery with legal tech integrations
The breadth of IT solutions available to help you manage, access, and safeguard legal data can seem overwhelming. This is where IT support for law firms becomes invaluable.
A managed service provider like Texaport will integrate software and systems, enhancing data accessibility and streamlining workflows.
Effective integration connects different systems and tools so they work together as a unified whole. The advantages are:
- Your tech works together seamlessly. Users don’t have to keep logging in and out between different systems.
- Integration streamlines workflows and reduces duplications and errors.
- Data flows between systems and throughout your law firm, improving accessibility.
- Improved data access enables more collaborative working. Employees can share specialist expertise, fuelling productivity.
At Texaport, we’re often asked to help legal firms integrate widely used platforms. Here are some examples:
Integrations to streamline accessibility
A unified platform like iManage stores documents centrally, making retrieval easier. Documents in iManage can be linked to case management software such as P4W, while BigHand can be used to manage workflows efficiently.
Integrations to streamline e-discovery
IT support for legal firms can integrate iManage with Microsoft Purview, which offers a secure platform for managing workflows during e-discovery. Purview consolidates data across Microsoft systems, streamlining the e-discovery process while ensuring data is encrypted and secure in transit, for example, if it’s being sent over the internet.
Integrating iManage with a tool like Relativity’s eDiscovery AI will deliver the benefits of generative AI to your e-discovery process. It can analyse, classify and summarise text-based documents stored in iManage (such as emails and PDFs), streamlining your workflows and freeing up employees for other tasks.
Transforming legal data management with managed IT services
Solicitors can leverage the transformative benefits of tech integration by partnering with a managed service provider, but there are many other advantages as well:
Implementing an automated data retention strategy
A data retention strategy categorises data by storage period and deletion schedule to meet efficiency and regulatory requirements. PII is deleted when it’s no longer needed, helping law firms comply with GDPR.
Deleting unnecessary data has the added benefit of reducing the information legal professionals must search through to find what they need.
Software like Microsoft’s Purview Suite can label data in line with your retention policy. IT support for solicitors can configure labelling in line with your retention strategy so data is automatically categorised based on its sensitivity, how long it needs to be kept and when it needs to be deleted.
Enhanced data security
A managed IT provider will ensure your cyber security protection is tailored to the legal services sector. They will work with you to:
- Audit and test your software and systems to identify any vulnerabilities.
- Mitigate existing vulnerabilities and oversee network security to ensure your data remains secure.
- Provide training for your staff so they understand security protocols and become your first line of defence against data breaches.
Regulatory compliance
In a recent ruling, the ICO reprimanded a legal firm when cyber criminals stole employee credentials and accessed their systems. The ruling criticised the firm for starting but not completing the NCSC’s Cyber Essentials Scheme.
Texaport’s GDPR consultancy offers audits and guidance to keep your data and customers protected. It can guide your law firm through the Cyber Essentials certification process, ensuring GDPR compliance.
IT support for law firms can help you label your data, and this ‘data tagging’ can enhance regulatory compliance. Files can be tagged by client, billing code, or creation and modification dates, establishing an audit trail. Data tagging helps firms track, locate and analyse data.
Our backup and retention strategy service helps you keep the data you need while deleting data that puts you in breach of GDPR.
Boosting efficiencies
Effectively integrating your IT systems delivers efficiency benefits to your legal firm. Partnering with a managed service provider ensures you meet the challenge of balancing data accessibility and effective e-discovery while safeguarding large quantities of PII.
Organised data is more accessible data. Rather than hindering data accessibility, effective data security and GDPR compliance make data retrieval and e-discovery a more streamlined and efficient process.
Futureproofing your legal firm
Shifting to the cloud offers multiple benefits. It helps your firm accommodate more data, streamlines accessibility and enables advanced analytics and AI. Cloud computing also offers elastic data management so your business can scale.
Cloud services are also highly effective in supporting remote accessibility making modern hybrid working practices more efficient.
Leveraging data for growth
Growth in the legal sector is increasingly dependent on adopting technology and improving access to data. Jenifer Swallow, director of the government-funded LawtechUK, signalled this saying:
“Embracing and responsibly using data is critical to the future success of the legal sector and the people it serves. Without data we cannot innovate, hold ourselves to account or provide the clear counsel and service people need.”
Jenifer Swallow Managing Director, LawtechUK
As legal data continues to grow, now is the time to adopt practices that help you manage and streamline this valuable resource. Partnering with a managed IT provider can help you achieve this while preparing for the future and the growth of your business.
Discover how your law firm can improve accessibility and e-discovery. Book a consultation with Texaport for your tailored IT support today.
