Peer to Peer: ILTA's Quarterly Magazine
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/1542659
24 C yber incidents are one of the most significant operational risks of the last decade. Every day, we read about ransomware, supply chain disruptions, and global outages. These recurring events test the resilience of every organization. For legal firms, the stakes are high. Confidential client data, ethical duties under the American Bar Association, and contractual obligations now converge with regulatory mandates from the SEC, FTC, and state authorities. In this environment, where many law firms have a full spectrum of user and mission- critical endpoints, including laptops, cell phones, and tablets, endpoint recovery is no longer a simple IT operations task. It has become a broader compliance, governance, and ethics strategy. The ability to restore systems quickly, consistently, and securely is now central to demonstrating due diligence, business continuity, and protecting client trust. THE SHIFT FROM IT OPERATIONS TO RISK AND COMPLIANCE ALIGNMENT A few years ago, recovery was treated as a technical matter: how quickly IT could rebuild a compromised device or restore a server. But the landscape has shifted. Everyone's expectations are rising. Law firms now face routine security questionnaires, while outside counsel increasingly demand evidence of reasonable efforts to protect and restore systems. Regulatory pressure has intensified with the SEC, FTC, and state-level mandates requiring firms to demonstrate not only prevention but also recovery readiness. And the ABA's cybersecurity guidance frames recovery as integral to a lawyer's duty of competence and confidentiality. As a result, recovery time objectives (RTOs) and mean time to restore (MTTR) are emerging as compliance metrics that all legal firms' boards love. These numbers are no longer buried in IT dashboards; they are scrutinized by clients, regulators, and bar associations as indicators of governance maturity. WHY IDENTITY-DRIVEN RECOVERY MATTERS The challenge is clear: how can firms demonstrate resilience in a way that is auditable, consistent, and defensible? The answer lies in identity-driven recovery. FEATURES IDENTITY-DRIVEN RECOVERY FOR LEGAL FIRMS Bridging IT, Risk, and Client Compliance BY JOSH AARON

