Tag Archives: Confidentiality

Do You Use the Cloud for Document Storage or Production? Read This First.

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Attorney Work Product, Attorney-Client Privilege, Clouds, Confidentiality, Discovery, Dropbox, Emails, Encryption, Evidence, Insurance Defense, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Litigation, Passwords, Privilege and Confidentiality, Requests for Production, Sanctions, Subpoena Duces Tecum

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Upload To File-Sharing Site Was Like Leaving Legal File On A Bench, Judge Says; Privilege Is Waived, by Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal©

http://bit.ly/2mxwEcF

Many use the cloud for file storage and sharing when attachments are too big to send by email. If you use the cloud for storage, file-sharing or transfer, document management, project management, or anything similar, here is a cautionary tale.

The plaintiff insurance company sued the defendants, and sought a declaratory judgment on the defendants’ claim of loss by fire. The plaintiff’s investigator uploaded the entire claims file, including surveillance footage, to a drop-box cloud, Box, Inc. The link had no encryption or password. Access to the link alone allowed anyone to see the file.

He then sent the link by email to the plaintiff insurance company, who sent it to the insurance company’s attorneys, who inadvertently sent it the defendants’ counsel in response to a subpoena duces tecum.

The defendants’ counsel looked at it, but didn’t tell the plaintiff they had seen the privileged and confidential information. Inevitably, the defense sent the information back on a thumb drive to the plaintiff’s attorneys during discovery.

After vigorous arguments about confidentiality, work-product doctrine, attorney-client privilege, and disqualification of defense counsel, the facts and court’s reasoning make this an interesting read. -CCE

We Should Know Better.

07 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in Confidentiality, Legal Ethics, Rules of Professional Responsibility

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Don’t Reveal Embarrassing Client Info, Cal. Bar Warns, by Casey C. Sullivan, Esq., FindLaw (with hat tip to William P. Statsky)

http://bit.ly/2aFqJOQ

I hope that everyone learned in paralegal or law school that you don’t talk in elevators, restaurants, and any other public place about clients and other embarrassing facts you may pick up along the way.  I once worked in a building with a popular restaurant on the top floor. We were close enough to the courthouse that lawyers often went there for lunch. It was amazing how many settlement discussions I heard in the elevator. It wasn’t hard to guess which case it was either.

We all have great war stories. Funny things that happened in court or depositions – things like that. Yes, truth is often funnier than fiction. Maybe thinking of it from the client’s perspective is helpful. If you were the client, would you want your attorney making your case the butt of a joke or story told in public? – CCE

Privilege Logs.

10 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by in Attorney Work Product, Attorney-Client Privilege, Discovery, Federal Rules of Discovery, Privilege and Confidentiality, Privilege Log, Requests for Production

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A Case Study on Privilege Logs, by Joshua Gilliland, Esq., Bow Tie Law Blog

https://bowtielaw.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/a-case-study-on-privilege-logs/

In this post, Mr. Gilliland suggests an Excel format and headings for a privilege log with a reminder to cover the privilege log rule requirements. Here is another basic example in Google Docs:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DKgo192j0sQfbj5H51gFQZNFbcrQJOxuBaUU3ZzZGBU/preview

-CCE

Privilege logs require more than merely saying a prospectively privileged document is an ‘attorney-client communication.’ This requires litigants to conduct privilege review with far more analysis than simply tagging discovery ‘Attorney Client Privilege’ or ‘Work Product Conduct.’ The case of United States v. State & La. Dep’t of Health & Hospitals highlights the importance of effective discovery review in creating privilege logs. . . .

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Recent Opinions On E-Discovery Hot Topic – Technology-Assisted Review.

14 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in Discovery, E-Discovery, Privilege and Confidentiality, Technology-Assisted Review

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Magistrate Judge Peck Addresses TAR, Provides Insight on Important Issues, published by K&L Gates

http://tinyurl.com/m7kll6l

Rio Tinto PLC v. Vale S.A., —F.R.D.—, 2015 WL 872294 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 2, 2015)

Taking up the topic of technology-assisted review (‘TAR’), Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck’s most recent opinion declares that ‘it is now black letter law that where the producing party wants to utilize TAR for document review, courts will permit it.’ Despite this, there remain open issues surrounding the use of TAR, including, as Magistrate Judge Peck noted, the question of ‘how transparent and cooperative the parties need to be with respect to the seed or training set(s).’ And, while this opinion did not resolve that question (because the parties in the present case agreed to ‘a protocol that discloses all non-privileged documents in the control sets’), it does provide some notable commentary on the issue. . . .

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Don’t Have A PIN Lock On Your Phone? Hope Your Malpractice Insurance Is Up To Date.

16 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by in Android Phones, Attorney Discipline, Blackberry Phones, Cell Phones, Confidentiality, Cybersecurity, E-Filing, Emails, iPad, iPhones, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Malpractice, Office Procedures, Passwords, Rules of Professional Responsibility, Supervising Support Staff, Technology, Technology

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Most Consumers Don’t Lock Mobile Phone Via PIN, by Ed Hansberry, DARKReading, InformationWeek©

http://tinyurl.com/plw76ut

My guess is that most people who use a smart phone access some kind of confidential information, such as your bank account or conversations with a client or the office. If you do not have a PIN lock on your smart phone, this truly is special kind of stupid.

This is not a hard one to understand. If you use your cell phone to communicate with clients, sync your phone to your office computer and docket, or attach yourself to your office and confidential information – without taking simple, basic security measures – you are  inviting a dangerous breach of confidentiality. -CCE

44% of respondents say it’s too much of a hassle, new survey reports.

People put a lot of sensitive info on their phones, but they often give little though to how secure their data is. In a survey by a security company, over half of the respondents said they didn’t bother with a PIN lock. This takes on a whole new dimension when you begin to understand how many of these people keep corporate data on the device.

Losing an unlocked phone can be far worse than losing a wallet. Emails on the device alone can reveal a wealth of information about the person, including where they bank, where they live, names of family members, and more. If company email is on the device, and it often is, there can be competitive information, salaries, system passwords, etc. If any of those emails contain links, often clicking on it will take you into the website, be it Facebook or a corporate portal.

According to Confident Technologies, 65% of users have corporate data on their phone, even though only 10% actually have a corporate issued device.

For that majority that don’t lock their phone at all, 44% said it is too much of a hassle to lock it and 30% said they weren’t worried about security. These are likely the same people that store things like social security numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information in text files or basic note applications. They may even store their computer’s password on a Post-It Note in their center desk drawer. . . .

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Time For A New Office Computer?

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Apple, Computer Forensics, Confidentiality, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, PC Computers, Technology, Technology

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Give Away your Computer, Revisited, by Craig Ball, Ball In Your Court

https://ballinyourcourt.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/give-away-your-computer-revisited/

This is the fourth in a series revisiting Ball in Your Court columns and posts from the primordial past of e-discovery–updating and critiquing in places, and hopefully restarting a few conversations. As always, your comments are gratefully solicited.

Give Away Your Computer 

[Originally published in Law Technology News, July 2005]

With the price of powerful computer systems at historic lows, who isn’t tempted to upgrade? But, what do you do with a system you’ve been using if it’s less than four or five-years old and still has some life left in it? Pass it on to a friend or family member or donate it to a school or civic organization and you’re ethically obliged to safeguard client data on the hard drive. Plus, you’ll want to protect your personal data from identity thieves and snoopers. Hopefully you already know that deleting confidential files and even formatting the drive does little to erase your private information—it’s like tearing out the table of contents but leaving the rest of the book. How do you be a Good Samaritan without jeopardizing client confidences and personal privacy? . . . .

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When Working Freelance, Get An Agreement In Writing.

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by in Confidentiality, Conflict of Interest, Legal Ethics, Malpractice

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Get It In Writing: Freelance Attorney Work Agreement, by Emerald Gratz, Lawyerist Blog

http://tinyurl.com/ntjd2gk

A quick word to paralegals who consider freelance work. Please remember that only lawyers can give legal advice. Except for specific circumstances provided by state or federal statutes, a non-lawyer cannot appear in court on behalf of someone else. If you work freelance, please review and follow the ethical requirements for our profession when working freelance. –CCE

The question of whether the work of a freelance attorney requires a written agreement seems obvious at first glance — “get it in writing” is the golden rule, after all. In practice it is not always that simple. There may be situations, depending on the client, project, or timetable, where getting a written freelance work agreement is not possible or necessary. If a hiring attorney is looking for last-minute emergency assistance, there may not be time to negotiate an agreement. Or the hiring attorney and freelance attorney may have an existing relationship and are comfortable working without a formal agreement.

In these situations, it still benefits both sides to set forth basic project terms in an email, at least. Ultimately, the freelance attorney is responsible for defining the business relationship and running his or her own freelance law practice. . . .

Is It Time For A “Bring Your Own Device” Policy for Your Law Office?

01 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Android Phones, Apple, Blackberry Phones, Cell Phones, Clouds, Computer Forensics, Confidentiality, Cybersecurity, Disaster Preparedness, Emails, Encryption, Google, Intellectual Property, iPad, iPhones, Law Office Management, Legal Blogs, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Mac, Management, Marketing, Passwords, PC Computers, Social Media, Supervising Support Staff, Tablets, Technology, Using Social Media

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Mobile Device Security for Lawyers: How Solos and Small Firms can Ethically Allow Bring Your Own Device, by Will Harrelson, Curo Legal Blog (with hat tip to Jeff Richardson, iPhone J.D. Blog!)

http://tinyurl.com/lrrnp7g

The Start of Bring Your Own Device Policies

It really is the iPhone’s fault. Yes, Apple is to blame for designing the most desirable piece of technology of the last decade. So desirable, in fact, that employees of all stripes requested (and, often, begged) their IT departments to toss the increasingly-‘corporate’ Blackberry out the window and allow the use of their personal iPhones for corporate emails and calls. As a result, we have been living in the age of ‘Bring Your Own Device’ where employees use a single personal mobile phone (or tablet) for both their personal email, texting, and social media while also using it for work email, word processing, and other enterprise applications.

Before the Bring Your Own Device era, a company’s greatest out-of-office security concern was an employee who left a briefcase in a taxi. Today, the worry is an employee misplacing a device the size of wallet containing almost limitless amounts of data that criminals or hackers would easily and quickly exploit if given the chance. Clearly, there is an obvious financial motivation for all businesses to protect their own or customer’s sensitive data.

However, lawyers face particular ethical consequences if they fail to take reasonable efforts to either investigate the technologies that they implement or protect their client’s confidential information. . . .

When You Share Files, Are They Secure?

31 Saturday May 2014

Posted by in Clouds, Confidentiality, Cybersecurity, Dropbox, Emails, Encryption, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Technology

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File Sharing by Lawyers Largely Insecure, Survey Suggests, by Robert Ambrogi, Robert Ambrogi’s Law Sites

http://tinyurl.com/pr3apcc

If I were to leave a document on a table entitled, ‘My Deepest, Darkest Secrets,’ under which I wrote, ‘Please do not read this unless you are someone I intended to read this,’ how securely would you think I’d protected myself?

That, effectively, is all the majority of lawyers do to protect confidential documents they share with clients and colleagues, according to a LexisNexis survey published this week. . . .

Use Wickr To Send Encrypted Information On iOs And Android Phones

05 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Android Phones, Cell Phones, Confidentiality, Emails, iPhones, Legal Technology

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Send Secure, Self-Destructing Messages with Wickr, by Robert Ambrogi at Robert Ambrogi’s Web Sites

http://bit.ly/HEj6aw

Lawyers have an ethical obligation to protect the confidentiality and security of communications with their clients. The more we learn about NSA snooping, the more we realize what a challenge that can be.