Advice from Your Professional Paper Shredding Company
Every law firm, big or small, has an enormous amount of attorney-client privileged information related to past and current cases. This could include confidential information about your client’s bank accounts, real estate, mortgages, medical records, marriage or divorce, wills, and other Personally Identifiable Information (PII). In the case of corporate clients, your firm may have access to business strategies, patents, undisclosed IPOs, mergers or acquisitions, trade secrets and other sensitive information.
If any of this data is hacked, leaked or stolen, it can be used for unlawful gains or leverage by criminals. This would mean a potential reputational, financial and legal risk for your clients as well as your firm. It is imperative that you identify potential threats, secure the data, and take precautionary measures to minimize leaks.
Identifying and Addressing Security Threats
While every legal firm is vulnerable to security issues, the threats may be more severe if you have high profile clients, are ill-prepared on security measures or do not comply with regulatory and legal norms.
Your individual and corporate clients may possibly have robust security measures in place to protect their physical and digitally stored information. However, you could be the weak link here. Don’t let your firm be an easy target for hacks and thefts. Implement proper cyber security firewalls and physical security measures to protect your valuable legal documents.
Here are a few suggestions on managing information security at your law firm:
- Physical Security: Ensure that the access to your physical premises is controlled and restricted, and vendors and delivery personnel are met at the door. Train your staff on clean desk policies and maintaining constant supervision of legal documents. Define processes for efficient and secure filing and storage of physical documents. For secure disposal of the client’s data in physical documents as well as digital formats, rely on the services of a professional shredding company.
- Cyber Security: In keeping with recent trends, you may have minimized paperwork and moved to sophisticated software and cloud-based storage platforms. However, ensure that you and your staff are well-trained to spot and address potential threats on aspects such as:
- Identifying email phishing scams or mobile security threats
- Vetting all third-party contractors such as software application vendors, document management service providers, shredding service providers and others
- Encrypting stored documents
- Defining restricted access to files and folders
- Destroying digital documents securely
- Regulatory Compliance: As a law firm, you are governed by the state and federal regulations that define how your client’s data and information should be managed. You are legally bound to follow the norms of minimum holding period and secure disposal of your legal files. In order to stay compliant with regulatory requirements, and save time, effort and money on data disposal, use professional shredding services.
TITAN Mobile Shredding offer a host of on-site and off-site services for secure disposal of confidential paperwork as well as media such as tapes, DVDs, CDs and thumb drives. We have several years of experience working with large and small law firms, and are well-equipped to meet the specific requirements of storing, protecting and recovering legal information.
Choose a trusted NAID AAA Certified company to address the paper and digital media shredding needs of your law practice. Call TITAN Mobile Shredding and speak to our data destruction professionals at (866) 848-2699 today or contact us online to request your free quote.
