IND-03 · Industry
Legal & Accountancy Firms
Case, practice and document systems — secured and supported.
Legal and accountancy firms run on case- and practice-management systems, document management, time-recording and billing, with secure file exchange and archiving. We support these systems, harden the identities and email around them, and keep documents backed up and recoverable.
Context
What we see in legal & accountancy firms
Legal and accountancy firms are, in technology terms, document businesses with a deadline problem. The value sits in files and correspondence; the risk sits in who can reach them and whether they can be produced years later. Meanwhile the work is seasonal and unforgiving — a filing deadline or a completion date does not move because a mail server is having a bad morning.
The systems are usually fine. What tends to be missing is the discipline around them: matter files copied to a laptop for the weekend, a client portal nobody enforces so attachments go out by email instead, access that accumulates as people move between teams, and an archive whose recoverability has never been proven. We work on exactly that layer — hardening identity and email, tightening access to the document and case systems, and making sure the archive is genuinely recoverable rather than merely present.
Firms are also a favourite target for invoice and payment fraud, because the money is real and the timing is public. We put practical controls around that risk: multi-factor authentication done properly, mailbox rule monitoring, and staff-facing guidance on the specific tricks used against firms like yours. We help implement and document controls; legal interpretation and formal certification come from qualified specialists.
Failure points
What typically goes wrong
Client files travelling on laptops
Work leaves the document-management system for convenience and never quite comes back. We make the managed route the easy route — secure remote access to the real system rather than copies scattered across devices.
Email as the file-transfer tool
Sensitive documents go out as attachments because the secure exchange is slower to use. We support the exchange platform and the identity controls around it so the safe path is also the quick one.
Access that only ever grows
People change teams and keep every permission they have ever held. Scheduled access reviews put that back in order, and a defined leaver process closes it on the day.
Invoice fraud aimed at the money
Payment redirection attempts arrive by email and look internal. Mailbox monitoring, enforced multi-factor authentication and clear staff guidance take most of the opportunity away.
Systems we commonly support
- Case- and practice-management systems
- Document-management systems
- Time-recording and billing software
- Secure file exchange and digital signatures
- Archive systems
How we support you
- Application support and vendor coordination
- Identity and email security
- Secure remote access
- Document backup and recovery
- Access-control reviews
- Incident response
Responsible scope
We help implement and document technical and organisational security controls. Legal interpretation and formal certification should be obtained from qualified specialists.
Questions
Good to know
Can you support secure client file exchange?
Yes — we support secure file-exchange and document-management platforms, and the identity and email controls around them.
Can you get us through a client security questionnaire?
We can evidence the technical controls in place — access management, encryption, backup, patching, monitoring and incident handling — and document them in a form you can submit. We do not issue certifications or answer for the legal position; that comes from qualified specialists.
What protects us from invoice and payment fraud?
Enforced multi-factor authentication, monitoring for suspicious mailbox rules and forwarding, alerting on unusual sign-ins, and plain guidance for the people who handle payment instructions. No control removes the risk entirely, so we also agree what to do when something slips through.
Our archive goes back years. Is that in scope?
Yes, and it is usually the part worth checking first. We confirm what is actually being backed up, test that it restores, and document retention so the answer to a retrieval request is not a search of old hardware.
Can you work around our busiest periods?
Planned work is scheduled around filing seasons and deadlines. We would rather move a migration than have it collide with the week your firm cannot afford disruption.
Start here
Managed IT for legal & accountancy firms.
Tell us about your systems, sites and specialist software. We assess your environment and scope a managed service around it.