Ensuring Secure Document Sharing in the Digital Age
Sensitive client information—like personal details, financial records, and medical history—is often important for the lawyers handling their case to know, but dangerous in the hands of anyone but authorized personnel. Leaking the wrong material to unauthorized individuals jeopardizes your case, makes it hard for clients to know they can trust your firm, and can even make the firm liable for noncompliance penalties and lawsuits.
MyFileRunner’s comprehensive eFiling services help law practices of all shapes and sizes stay compliant and maintain their clients’ trust. In this blog, we’ll share our tips for staying up-to-date on secure document sharing in the year 2025.
Law Firm Data Breaches: How They Happen, What They Cost
In 2024, nearly one in three law firms reported data breaches. And insecure legal document sharing doesn’t just take the form of accidentally sending a document to the wrong person. There are plenty of cybercriminals out there eager to get their hands on sensitive documents they can use to commit more crimes and enrich themselves.
Data breaches can happen when you:
- Lose or misplace unencrypted work equipment, such as a laptop or tablet
- Accidentally allow access to a confidential file to unauthorized colleagues
- Get attacked by cybercriminals who have found a weak spot in your IT security
These incidents can cost firms millions of dollars, and that’s not even counting potential liability for malpractice lawsuits. The total costs can’t always be counted in money, either. Data breaches can cause significant reputational damage to your firm and make it hard for potential clients to trust you.
How you share documents with fellow legal assistants and attorneys—and most importantly, how you protect them—can maintain your workplace’s high ethical standards or jeopardize them. Keep best practices for sharing legal documents in mind and make sure people only see the information they need to see, and you won’t have to worry about a little mistake putting your employer in hot water.
Best Practices for Secure Document Sharing
The most secure document is a document nobody ever sees except you. But documents like those aren’t usually very useful to legal professionals. To share your documents securely:
Use Encrypted Communication Channels
Always share documents through email and file-sharing services that use SSL/TLS encryption.
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Even if the login credentials for sensitive legal documents become compromised, you can use MFA to prevent unauthorized users from accessing files.
Limit Access Based on Need-to-Know Principles
If your back office implements strict access controls, you can use role-based access to ensure only authorized personnel can view or edit specific files. These controls reduce the risk of accidental data leaks while maintaining necessary legal document transparency.
Transfer Files with Password Protection
Encrypt files before transferring them and require recipients to enter a password to view them. Share the password through another secure channel. This protects files from unauthorized access through the same principle as MFA.
Store Client Interactions In One Place
Use one secure, dedicated platform for document sharing and messaging to keep all client interactions stored in one place. Centralized client communication eliminates the risks of using unsecured email or multiple communication channels.
Tips to Choose the Right Secure Document-Sharing Platform
One of the most important choices you can make to protect client and case information is your choice of legal document sharing platform. There are plenty of platforms made specifically for legal professionals to share and collaborate on documents. Which one is right for you? That, of course, depends on what it does and what you need it to do.
Make sure your platform of choice offers:
Compliance with Legal Industry Standards
If a platform is geared toward lawyers, ABA cybersecurity recommendations and state bar data security guidelines should be common sense. If your firm handles specific types of cases, like medical malpractice lawsuits, it should also meet relevant regulations (such as HIPAA, in this example).
End-to-End Encryption
Secure legal document-sharing platforms must encrypt files both in transit and at rest to prevent unauthorized interception.
Compatibility with Existing Legal Software
Choose a solution that fits seamlessly into your existing workflow. Some platforms integrate directly with your case management platform, while others are platform-agnostic.
Audit Trails and Reporting Capabilities
In the balance between legal document transparency and security, choose both. A secure platform should provide detailed logs of who accessed, modified, or shared a document and when to help you stay compliant with data protection regulations.
Ease of Use
If a secure document-sharing platform is too cumbersome to use, lawyers won’t use it, even if they know that’s not a good idea. If you’re going to be late to work, after all, it’s a lot easier to convince yourself to take a risky shortcut! A user-friendly interface reduces the risk of employees bypassing security measures for convenience.
MyFileRunner: So Much More Than eFiling and eService
You might take a quick look at MyFileRunner and see an eFiling and eService solution—but we’re so much more. In fact, we’re exactly what you need us to be. From real-time filing updates to smart reporting, we put everything under one roof to provide seamless workflows for filing, billing, case tracking, and secure document sharing.
Filing is just the bare minimum. We help your firm run better, bill smarter, and stay ahead of the pack. Sign up today and discover how we can help you stay efficient and secure: