The rise of Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) has provided law firms – especially those in high cost markets - with a cost-effective, flexible, and efficient way to take advantage of high quality legal support for repetitive legal tasks in lower cost markets in other states and countries. Not only does this free up lawyers for work on high margin tasks, it gives some firms the ability to take advantage of time zone differences and operate 24 hours a day. These low margin tasks – e-Discovery, document drafting and review, due diligence and other litigation support services – require a secure mode of communication with the LPO firm, and worldwide locations mean that digital communication is the quickest and best option.

This is where it gets complicated – transmitting documents back and forth between your law firm and an LPO provider without violating your duty to keep client information confidential. Your firm bears the burden of ensuring that data is kept confidential during and after transfer to an LPO provider, as well as for the return transfer back to you.

How can D.E.S.C help your firm ensure this happens? D.E.S.C provides a highly secure, virtually contained environment for sharing client information. This client information - contributed to the environment by one or more parties - can be shared with individuals or with a team at the LPO provider.

D - Large quantities of DATA can be stored in your D.E.S.C, in any file format. Planning to outsource e-Discovery? No problem. D.E.S.C can handle the massive amount of data AND the varying file types that come with this type of outsourcing.

E - Any designated member of your firm can EASILY create a workspace on your D.E.S.C, without the need to involve someone from IT. From there, it is simple to share login credentials with an individual or team at your LPO provider and allow them to access the secure workspace.

S - Share your client information SECURELY with your LPO provider. No email with password-protected files or VPN connections necessary; mail, fax, and other expensive methods of physical delivery are now obsolete.

C - Any designated member of your firm can contribute to, create, and edit documents in the workspace on your D.E.S.C. Individuals or teams at the LPO provider can also create and edit documents in the secure workspace, but they CANNOT remove documents from the secure workspace unless approved by the contact at your firm. D.E.S.C also tracks access and activity within the workspace, ensuring that your confidential client information is CONTAINED.

Your firm could engage outside counsel for a variety of reasons – mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property valuation or disputes, expert witness testimony or initial public offerings, just to name a few. Transmitting sensitive client information back and forth with outside counsel requires a secure mode of communication, and the global nature of the business world leaves digital communication as the quickest and best option.

Your firm has the ethical duty of ensuring that data is kept confidential during and after transfer to outside counsel, as well as for the return transfer back to you. Moreover, the monetary and reputation risks of a data breach in these scenarios are high. You are concerned not only about random attacks from hackers, but also corporate and government espionage that could result in exposure of client data.

How can D.E.S.C help with those concerns? D.E.S.C provides a highly secure, virtually contained environment for sharing client information. This client information - contributed to the environment by one or more parties - can be shared with outside counsel.

D - Large quantities of DATA can be stored in your D.E.S.C, in any file format. Need to share years of client information with outside counsel in preparation for an initial public offering? No problem. D.E.S.C can handle the massive amount of data AND the varying file types from your client.

E - Any designated member of your firm can EASILY create a workspace on your D.E.S.C, without the need to involve someone from IT. From there, it is simple to share login credentials with an individual or team at the other firm and allow them to access the secure workspace.

S - Share your client information SECURELY with outside counsel. No email with password-protected files or VPN connections necessary; mail, fax, and other expensive methods of physical delivery are now obsolete.

C - Any designated member of your firm can contribute to, create, and edit documents in the workspace on your D.E.S.C. Individuals or teams at the outside firm can also create and edit documents in the secure workspace, but they CANNOT remove documents from the secure workspace unless approved by the contact at your firm. D.E.S.C also tracks access and activity within the workspace, ensuring that your confidential client information is CONTAINED.

You need to communicate with clients on a daily basis. Transmitting sensitive client information back and forth requires a secure mode of communication, and as your client base becomes more global than local, in-person visits and sending documents via courier for every communication is inconvenient and time-consuming. Most of your clients are comfortable communicating via email, and many prefer it to other methods of communication.

But - your firm has an ethical duty to ensure the confidentiality of client information when transmitting documents via email. Unfortunately, the chances of a data breach – accompanied by the monetary and reputational consequences to your firm – are not inconsequential when using email as your mode of communication. Even if your employees engage in best practices to keep client information confidential, there is no guarantee that your clients will do the same.

How can D.E.S.C reduce the risk of exposure of sensitive client information? D.E.S.C provides a highly secure, virtually contained environment for sharing client information. This client information - contributed to the environment by one or more parties - can easily be shared with your clients.

D - Large quantities of DATA can be stored in your D.E.S.C, in any file format.

E - Any designated member of your firm can EASILY create a workspace on your D.E.S.C, without the need to involve someone from IT. From there, it is simple to share login credentials with your client to allow them to access the secure workspace from any device. Once in the workspace, your client will feel comfortable with a familiar Windows interface.

S - Share information with your clients SECURELY. Only the designated recipients can access the files. No email with password-protected files or VPN connections necessary; mail, fax, and other expensive methods of physical delivery are now obsolete. Most importantly, clients don’t have to worry about password-protecting files to email back to you.

C - Any designated member of your firm can contribute to, create, and edit documents in the workspace on your D.E.S.C. Your client can also create and edit documents in the secure workspace, but files CANNOT be copied, printed or otherwise removed from the secure workspace unless approved by the contact at your firm. D.E.S.C also tracks access and activity within the workspace, ensuring that your confidential client information is CONTAINED.