IT Support for Solicitors and Law Firms

What the SRA expects from your IT

The Solicitors Regulation Authority does not publish a single technical standard for law firm IT. What it does expect, and what it checks after an incident, is that firms take reasonable steps to protect client confidentiality and client money. In practice that means multi-factor authentication on every account, encrypted devices, software kept patched, tested backups and training that covers every member of staff, including reception and accounts.

The Code of Conduct for Firms also requires you to report serious breaches of your regulatory arrangements to the SRA promptly. A compromised mailbox that leads to a client sending completion money to a criminal can become exactly that kind of matter. Good IT will not remove every risk, but it gives your COLP a clear record of what was in place and what was done.

We set up and maintain those controls for you, document them in plain English, and keep the evidence your insurer and the SRA are likely to ask for.

Stopping email modification fraud

The SRA has repeatedly named email modification fraud as the most common cybercrime affecting solicitors. A criminal gets into a mailbox, at your firm or the client's, waits for a property completion, then sends a convincing email with different bank details. Conveyancing teams are the usual target, but probate and litigation teams also hold client money.

Our standard set-up for a law firm includes:

• MFA on every Microsoft 365 account, with Conditional Access blocking legacy sign-in methods that ignore MFA.
• SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your domain so criminals cannot easily send mail that looks like it came from you. See our email security page for the detail.
• Alerts for new forwarding and inbox rules, the first thing an attacker usually creates.
• External sender warnings on emails from outside the firm.
• Phishing awareness training for all staff through our staff security training.

None of this replaces your process of confirming bank details by phone on a known number, but it makes the attack much harder to start.

Case management, dictation and document systems

Most firms run their practice on a case management system such as LEAP, Clio, Actionstep, Osprey or Access Legal's Proclaim, alongside dictation software, a document scanner and HM Land Registry portal access. Many are now cloud hosted, but they still depend on the PC, browser, Outlook add-in and network at your end.

When a fee earner's Outlook integration stops filing emails to matters, or the system crawls on one machine, we work through it: Office updates, add-in conflicts, browser versions, network speed and Windows profile corruption. If the fault sits with the software supplier, we gather the evidence and raise it with them on your behalf so you are not passed back and forth.

For firms still running an on-premises server for case management or document storage, we look after Windows Server updates, disk health and backups, and can plan a move to the cloud when the time is right. Our server support page explains what that involves.

Hybrid working without losing control of client files

Solicitors work from home, court and client offices. The risk is client data ending up on personal devices. We enrol firm laptops in Microsoft Intune, turn on BitLocker encryption, apply update rings and stop files being saved to unmanaged USB sticks. If a laptop is lost on a train, it can be wiped remotely and the data on the disk is unreadable without the key.

SharePoint and OneDrive permissions are set up around teams and matters, not left as one big shared drive that everyone can see. Guest sharing links are restricted so a document cannot be passed on by accident. See device management with Intune for how this works.

Which dijitul support plan suits a law firm

Most small and medium firms choose the Complete plan at £99 a month + VAT. It includes updates, daily backups, uptime and security monitoring, 3 hours of fixes or changes each month and IT and Microsoft 365 helpdesk support for your team. If your firm only needs its website looked after, the Essential plan at £25 a month + VAT covers that, and the Business plan at £50 a month + VAT adds an hour of changes and priority support.

One-off jobs, such as setting up a new starter or investigating a suspicious login, are £45 an hour + VAT with a 30-minute minimum. Office moves, server migrations and new network installs are quoted. Compare options on our pricing page or get in touch.

What it costs

Support plans from £25 a month + VAT, or £45 an hour + VAT for one-off fixes. Pick a plan if you want it looked after every month, or pay by the hour for a one-off job.

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