Attorney and law firms are increasingly interested in taking advantage of the proliferation of cloud computing services in their law practice. For example, they might wish to use web-based email to interact with their clients, subscribe to customer relationship management (CRM) services that are offered as Software as a Service (SaaS) to manage their customer and prospect lists. They may be tempted to store documents in the many storage services that are offered at no charge. New options are emerging every day, as more applications are developed and marketed.

However, while cloud services present significant advantages, the use of cloud computing services by attorneys and law firms present unique challenges due to the ethical rules to which attorneys are subject. In addition to ethical concerns, services provided in a cloud computing environment present a number of technical, physical, and contractual risks. Cloud computing agreements should be reviewed carefully before venturing into this new, complex form of outsourcing.

The Advantages of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing offers so many advantages that it is difficult to resist the temptation. Many services can be obtained at a significantly low cost; in many cases, they may be offered free of charge. Thus, it may be less expensive for the law firm to acquire these services from a cloud provider rather than running and maintaining an application using one’s own server on one’s premises. The maintenance is usually included in the offering, so there may be no need to worry about keeping up with updates, as they are installed automatically. The services are accessible from anywhere, a feature of great interest to attorneys who work long hours and may take advantage of the remote access capability to telecommute if needed. Altogether, cloud computing requires less in-house expertise and capability and less infrastructure, which may result in significant savings.

Cloud computing services may provide flexibility. As these services are often sold on demand, a law firm may take advantage of the elasticity to purchase as little as it needs on a regular basis, knowing that it can quickly ramp up and add storage, computing capability, or a few new features if the need arises.

Cloud computing may also provide increased stability and security. Reputable cloud providers usually employ the most up-to-date, sophisticated security measures. Their experienced, adequately trained staff excels at implementing security measures that take into account the current trends. They have access to sophisticated tools to monitor unauthorized access to the systems or manage permissions. These entities also have the ability to put in place sophisticated disaster recovery and business continuity features that are likely to be more powerful and effective than those that a small or lean law practice could implement.

However, entrusting data to cloud providers is not without danger. For instance, a large cloud provider that is known for servicing prestigious customers might also be the target of cyber attacks aimed at disrupting these customers’ operation or accessing their critical data. In addition, attorneys are subject to stringent ethical rules that may hamper their ability to use certain types of cloud services for certain purposes or with certain categories of data.

Ethical Rules

Before starting a search for cloud services that would make your practice so much more efficient, you should first determine whether the Ethical Rules that apply to your profession would allow your law firm to use cloud services. Ethical rules vary from one jurisdiction to another, but they tend to follow some common general principles.

Competence, Confidentiality

Most Ethical Rules that apply to attorneys contain a duty of competence and a duty of confidentiality. Will the professionals who will use the new cloud based program be sufficiently proficient, and able to log in and out of a system, save or annotate documents, in a manner that does not put at risk the confidentiality or the integrity of the data?

Duty to Supervise

The Ethical Rules may also contain a duty to supervise and may require an attorney who assigns work or responsibilities to a non-attorney (e.g., the cloud provider) to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the third party’s conduct is compatible with the attorney’s professional obligations.

Duty to Safeguard Client Data

Attorneys are also generally required to keep client property, such as files, information, and documents appropriately safeguarded. Would a law firm be able to ensure proper safekeeping of the clients file if these files were stored in a cloud? Certain cloud services may host the data or several customers on the same server. Would this co-location be deemed “appropriate safeguard?

Further, the cloud provider may have structured its network so that the servers are spread throughout the world. Keep in mind that a foreign country would be likely to assert jurisdiction over any server located within its territory. These countries are also likely to have adopted different laws or standards with respect to third party or government access to data, confidentiality, or data ownership.

Duty to Communicate with Client

Finally, Ethical Rules for attorneys may contain a duty to communicate with clients. Would this duty require a attorney or law firm to promptly inform clients of any decision to store the client’s data in a third party’s cloud and to seek their consent?

Given the potential application of these and other ethical rules it would be prudent for attorneys and law firms that contemplate the use of cloud computing services to review carefully the ethical rules that apply to their profession, in their region, and review, as applicable, any opinion or guidance that may have been published by the applicable authority that regulates their profession.

How to Manage Cloud Computing Risk

Numerous precautions and measures can be taken by attorneys to reduce their exposure to legal, commercial, and reputational risk in connection with the use of cloud services.

Internal Due Diligence

Before stepping into the cloud, you should conduct an internal due diligence in order to determine the potential obstacles or constraints that might prohibit or restrict the use of cloud services by your law firm. For example, you should review the ethical rules that might apply to your organization, as discussed above. You should also determine whether the law firm or any of its professionals has entered in a confidential agreement or data use agreement that might restrict the transfer of data to third parties, even if these third parties are service providers. You should also determine whether the proposed plan to use a cloud service or host would require the prior consent of your clients.

Keep in mind, as well, that some data might be so sensitive or confidential that they should not be transferred to cloud, or the transfer might require significant precautions. This might be the case, for example, for files that pertain to high stakes mergers or acquisitions.

External Due Diligence; Contracts

Make sure that you understand the particular application or service you are contemplating to purchase. How will the servers be used to process your data? While it is important to involve your information technology team, you should understand how the service will operate, where the servers will be located, whether your data will be collocated with others customers’ data, and how your data will be protected from intrusion or disasters. Ensure that the service will be reliable and easy to use by everyone at the law firm. Conduct appropriate due diligence of the proposed vendor and the proposed applications. Check references. Conduct online searches and/or call current clients to evaluate the vendor’s reputation.

You should also review the proposed contract carefully, even if you are told that it is not negotiable. First, it might actually be possible to negotiate changes. And even if it is not, you should understand the consequences and implications of the engagement you are making. Pay special attention to the disclaimers of liability, confidentiality, intellectual property, and security provisions.

Continuous Access to Data

Service outages happen regularly. It is important to ensure that the cloud service will provide alternative access to data, such as by switching to a server located in a different region if an outage affects a specific data center. The service provider should have in place a robust disaster recovery plan that alleviates the effect of outages.

Consider backing-up your data to an alternative system or a second cloud provider, to ensure that you will be able to access the data in the event of an outage in the vendor’s facility or network, or in the event of a natural or other disaster.

Ensure that you have the ability to change providers when it becomes necessary or desirable to do so. Keep in mind, however, that while it may be feasible to move from one hosting service to another, changing applications, such as a customer relationship management, is likely to be impossible, or very costly.

Many cloud contracts provide that in the event of an outage the customer will be refunded that portion of their monthly fee that corresponds to the duration of the outage. Be realistic about the actual effect of such provision. The refund might be insignificant compared to the huge inconvenience and loss of business and loss of data availability. For example, what would you do if you are in the middle of a trial or closing an acquisition, and suddenly the needed data are not available due to an outage or other force majeure event?

Security, Security Breaches

Ensure that the data will be appropriately protected from unauthorized access or modification. Specific steps that may be required such as installation of firewall, access limitations, encryption, strong passwords or other authentication measures, and electronic audit trail to monitor access to data. Ensure that you are informed of the security breaches that affect the data that your law firm uploads to the cloud. You may have a legal and/or ethical obligation to inform your clients and the regulators about an incident affecting these data. Negotiate compensation or indemnification by the service provider if the breach is caused by the cloud provider either affirmatively or through its own negligence/failure to maintain agreed-upon safeguards or reasonable security measures.

Data Ownership

Beware of obscure or confusing clauses that might give the cloud provider ownership of data stored in its services, or the metadata associated with the access to or processing of your law firm’s or clients’ data. Ensure that the contracts with the service provider(s) acknowledge that the data are owned by the law firm and/or its client, and not by the cloud provider.

Termination

Anticipate the need to terminate the service. Have an exit strategy in place so that the law firm may change its provider when it becomes necessary or desirable to do so.

Implementation

Train your own staff and professionals who will use the cloud service or products, and obtain their written agreement to comply with your security measures and those that are recommended by the cloud provider such as the use of strong passwords, and the prohibition of sharing passwords.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that cloud computing is here to stay and that gradually companies will move most of their data to the cloud. However, switching the physical custody of one’s data to a third party does not relieve an organization from its legal obligations to protect these data, ensure adequate security and integrity, limit its use to specific purposes, or ensure its availability. Thus, any company should carefully consider the pros and cons, as well as the consequences of the use of cloud services. For lawyers and law firms, these concerns are compounded with other concerns that come from the specific ethical rules that govern the profession. Before venturing in the cloud, lawyers and law firms must evaluate the effect of the relevant rules of ethics to which they are subject, identify the categories of data that may be processed or stored in the cloud, and take other necessary measures to ensure that they will be able to fulfill all of their legal and ethical duties to their clients.

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