The legal industry is, much like any other sector, undergoing a digital transformation in this modern day and age. Legal practices around the world are conducting more and more processes in the online world, and of course, online communication has become the cornerstone of an efficient legal operation. After all, you need to communicate with your clients and staff in real time if you are to remain relevant and competitive nowadays. Even though digital transformation opens up numerous lucrative opportunities for growth-oriented law firms, it also brings certain risks to the table that you mustn’t ignore.

The risks of a cyber-attack and the potential dangers to cybersecurity in the legal sector are quite real, which is why law firms are increasingly using content filtering to protect their network, their employees and clients, and their brand. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the best tips that will help you implement content filtering in your law firm quickly and effectively.

Ensuring legal compliance

First things first, as any good legal practice you have to ensure that your web filtering solutions are in accordance with the governing laws and regulations regarding the flow of information in the digital world, as well as the proper handling of sensitive business data, including employee and client information. There is no denying the importance of compliance in business no matter the industry, but in the legal sector, compliance can make or break your brand’s trustworthiness and authority in your field.

However, it’s not just about meeting the minimum requirements, because a law firm must ensure complete compliance through cross-regional control in order to take advantage of the benefits that the local government offers while at the same time safeguarding the practice from legal disputes and charges. Compliance also improves safety across the board, which leads us to the next key point.

Employee awareness and education

Network and content filtering in a law firm starts with proper employee training and education. Your goals should be to build awareness around the importance of proper data management as well as internal and external communication in order to raise accountability and incentivize your employees to take cybersecurity more seriously. After that, you can start conducting the necessary seminars and workshops that will teach your employees on proper conduct in the online world, how to recognize threats of social engineering and potential cyber-attacks, and how to use the web filtering tools that you have implemented.

This is especially important for law firms that employ a diversified workforce and different age groups, as you want to pay special attention to your less tech-savvy employees and make sure that they understand the potential threats and risks. You can run individualized training sessions for those who require more time learning about proper data handling and cybersecurity.

Monitoring all network traffic

The most important solution you need to implement is that you need to monitor all traffic that is coming in and out of your local network. This is best achieved through a comprehensive web filtering tool that has all of the necessary features to make network monitoring efficient and effective, all the while ensuring compliance and minimizing the risk of data leaks or social engineering attacks.

The tool that you opt for should provide you with complete network control (more on that in a bit), and allow you to minimize access to all non-work-related websites in order to raise employee productivity and reduce the risk of a cyber-attack. This is also one of the best ways to minimize bandwidth usage and maintain a more stable and reliable business network.

Crafting a comprehensive filtering policy

Of course, there are many different departments in a modern law firm, and not all of them should be able to access important company data equally. This is why you need to create a comprehensive filtering policy that will be more permissive or more restrictive, depending on the department that the employee is in. The best approach is to stick with a hybrid policy that will allow a more flexible approach to web usage in non-critical sectors, while being more restrictive to mission-critical departments and individuals in the top echelon of managers and partners that are handling key processes.

Manual and automated cross-sector control

Last but not least, web filtering should allow you to retain full control of your entire network, but more specifically it should allow you to monitor and control groups, users, schedules, all communication and different subcategories, as well as to do this manually or automatically. Manual control is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process, so you want to filter content automatically while manually handling only the complex problems that may occur. Consider Incorporating an Effective Email Retention Policy  Email messages are the most common communication channels used by modern businesses. They are perhaps the main data-flow bloodlines as these messages often convey information of critical importance and are frequently used as evidence themselves

This is why it is highly recommended for law firms to incorporate a strong and clear email retention policy and have a proper email archiving strategy in place. These systems help organizations properly structure and filter their email-based content, making it easier for the employees with appropriate data access levels to retrieve critical content when necessary.

Wrapping up

Web and content filtering is becoming increasingly important in the modern legal sector, and for a number of key reasons. Be sure to implement these solutions to protect your business network and safeguard your brand’s reputation in your field.