Digital White Papers

ILTA WHITE PAPER: JUNE 2014 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 33 DIFFERENT DATA, DIFFERENT SECURITY? cloud, ironically, are privacy and security. The impression is that, once outside the firm's network and control, information is potentially less private and less secure. What is interesting is that many of those same firms will allow cloud-based providers to host e-discovery data. WHY THE DOUBLE STANDARD? To understand why these data types are treated differently, we have to analyze the factors that determine the data's use and life cycle. Think of client data stored in a DMS as the electronic filing cabinet of the firm. Since a large percentage of firms have paperless initiatives, digital files are often the only official client record. Each year, mountains of paper get digitally scanned and converted to text-searchable, electronic files and then get stored in the DMS. The DMS is also the storage point and representative, historical knowledge base of the collective expertise of the attorneys at the firm. Quite simply, the DMS is the core system in most law firms, and it is treated with the utmost security and privacy controls — especially in firms handling data subject to Safe Harbor rules and regulations. System administrators monitor who has access to what data and where the data reside, and they ensure system redundancy and availability. This is critical because when you go paperless and scan hard copies of all documents, Bankers Boxes full of paper records previously shipped offsite are Conversely, electronically stored information (ESI) in an e-discovery system is usually treated differently and placed into cloud-based systems. E-discovery systems help attorneys pool together and manipulate copies of case- or matter-specific data in one centralized location while preserving original attributes and metadata. Individual records in the e-discovery system can be tagged, sorted, redacted and modified in a method that helps attorneys organize the data to understand and establish the facts and evidence. That e-discovery data can then be culled, reduced, deduplicated, destroyed (unless there is a need for originals like deeds, wills, etc.). All the information is now electronic, so paper is unnecessary and the digital files are key. Special security considerations are applied to electronic files, which can help you avoid conflicts between related parties among attorneys in the same firm. Depending on a firm's records retention and management policies, the data in a DMS will typically live on for a minimum of 10 years, and some data will be kept indefinitely. The complex life cycle of client-matter data stored in a DMS along with the need to access the data and ensure safety and redundancy make security and privacy controls a number one priority. Unfortunately, the same cannot always be said for data moved to the cloud. Service-level agreements often have tiers of control, security and redundancy. A cloud service provider's documented downtime and operating practices can also cause firm's to pause when considering a hosted solution for their most critical information stores. Data in a DMS will typically live on for a minimum of 10 years, and some data will be kept indefinitely.

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