Ajax Privacy and Cybersecurity Lawyer, Rajen Akalu, of Akalu Law P.C., provides an overview of a summer project to assist solo practitioners and small law firms with cybersecurity.
I started my law practice 6 years ago. It’s easy to remember because my youngest daughter Chloe was born around the same time. Starting a practice changed me a lot. I used to prepare students for their exams and the course material which primarily relates to business law and ethics as applied to information technology. I still do that of course, but I’ve come to realize that there are aspects to their learning they can only develop through experience.
A project that I started working on during the summer with my student, Devansh Patel, aims to assist solo and small firms with cybersecurity. I’m an executive member of the solo and small firm section and the privacy and access section of the Ontario Bar Association, so I’ve gotten to know a lot of lawyers who run their own law practices.
It’s becoming increasingly common for lawyers to start their own practices, the costs of running a practice are lower and remote working has become the norm. But this also presents its own challenges in terms of cybersecurity. Unlike large firms, there’s no dedicated IT support and the solo lawyer has a limited budget and wears many hats. Since lawyers deal with highly sensitive data, there’s a real need to have robust security in place. Moreover, certain practice areas, such as real estate will have a higher risk of fraud.
The project will examine these risks and develop a threat model for a small law firm. This will assist in decision-making about cybersecurity risks and mitigation strategies. There are risk transfer options, namely cyber-insurance, but it’s valuable to know whether this will be needed and the important policy exclusions that apply.
In the case of a cyber breach, an incident response plan needs to be in place. What types of alerts should be set up to notify the lawyer that the system is being attacked? Who should be contacted? What experience, certifications should the lawyer seeking to hire an outside cybersecurity expert have?
Since I teach IT networking students, it’s a really great way of showing students how what they learn in our programs can be applied to make a direct impact in another industry sector.
Rajen Akalu
647 299 5079
rajen@akalulaw.com
