Proper document management is vital for law firms as it promotes information security. Securing law firms and their clients’ information is extremely important because losing an important document can have a direct, immediate impact on a client’s case; clients can also pursue legal repercussions against law firms if they mismanage or lose their documents. Part of proper document management for law firms is having a detailed audit trail for changes made to a document. This can include who made changes to a document, when the changes were made, and if copies were downloaded. The audit trail allows the law firm to recognize every change and track it back to whoever made the change. This helps law firms comply with regulations and establishes trust with clients that share confidential information with the law firm.

Document management programs also aid law firms with document sharing. In today’s law work environment, sending, sharing and collaborating on documents is a daily occurrence. Through the daily and frequent communication by email and other platforms, it is easy to make a mistake and send documents to the wrong recipient. A simple mistake like this can put your firm and clients at risk. Document management programs offer alternatives to enable secure communication and collaboration on documents. This helps your firm keep control of who can access documents and document history. Some of the document management programs allow collaboration between users and keep track of edits, notes and any other important changes pertaining to the documents. This helps promote secure and efficient collaboration in your law firm’s communication methods.

Effective document management helps protect law firms from external cyber attacks. Good document management practices like configuring your spam filters can help save your firm from ransomware and other malicious cyberattacks. In recent years, law firms have become a primary target for hackers and cyber criminals due to the sensitive data law firms hold. Although law firms hold sensitive data, they aren’t up to par with industry standard cybersecurity protocols thus making them an attractive target for cyberattacks. Part of good document management is having proficient spam filters for your law firm’s email server. Hackers prey on law firm employees by sending spam and malicious email to an employee and then gaining access to the firm’s email server if an employee responds to their email. Securing your law firm’s email server and configuring spam filters to block spam emails before it even reaches your law firm will help protect your employees from malicious emails.

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