“Incident Response Plans Come of Age” by Sensei’s Sharon Nelson and John Simek was featured in the December 2019 issue of the San Bernardino County Bar Bulletin.

Excerpt: WHY DO ONLY 25% OF LAW FIRMS HAVE INCIDENT RESPONSE PLANS?

One of the most striking findings of the ABA’s 2018 Legal Technology Survey Report was that only 25% of law firms had an Incident Response Plan (IRP). In a world struggling daily against cyber incidents and data breaches, that is a piteous statistic. We don’t know why so many law firm fail to create incident response plans, but it is time to come to grips with the necessity of having an Incident Response Plan. The last time we focused on this subject in an article was in 2015. It is definitely time to revisit the topic and issue a rallying cry for the adoption of IRPs.

Let us be clear at the outset that we are zeroing in on solo, small and mid-sized law firms. While large law firms will include all the elements we reference below in their IRPs, theirs will be far more complex and with many moving parts. As ever, we are trying to craft a solution that is reasonable and not financially overwhelming to meet the ethical rules which govern lawyers

Read the entire article here (page 10).

Sensei’s CEO Mike Maschke will be speaking at the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association’s Annual Conference (MWELA) on January 31, 2020. Mike will be part of a panel discussion on “Dotting the I’s and Crossing the T’s of Law Practice IT: What You Need to Know to Ethically Manage Electronic Communications and Data”.

 MWELA’s Annual Conference is an all-day event featuring colleagues, judges, and outside experts on topics concerning all aspects of the plaintiff’s employment practice. The annual Lawyer of the Year award will also be presented during the conference.

MWELA is a 501(c)(4) organization comprised of over 300 lawyers who regularly advise and represent employees in employment and civil rights disputes. MWELA is the local chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association, a national organization of more than 3,000 lawyers dedicated to the advancement of employee rights. MWELA supports the orderly and fair development of the law to the benefit of employees. In keeping with its mission, MWELA regularly holds educational programs, discussions, and networking events for its members and in cooperation with other voluntary bar associations.

 View the MWELA Conference details here.

Sensei’s Sharon Nelson and John Simek were recently featured in Attorney at Work’s  “Using Ethical Hacking to Improve Your Cybersecurity” By Sam Bocetta.

Excerpt: In many ways, the cyber threats faced by law firms are similar to those faced by any small business. Law firms, however, can be particularly vulnerable to hacks and cyberattacks.

This is for a number of reasons. Law firms typically hold huge amounts of personally identifiable, sensitive information on their clients, and this can make them a tempting target for attack. At the same time, the level of cybersecurity knowledge in the average law firm lags behind that in other sectors. Law firms have been slow, in fact, to implement cybersecurity testing measures that are now widely used by other businesses. One of these is “ethical hacking” — essentially, hiring a hacker to try to access your systems or trick your employees in order to highlight vulnerabilities in your systems.

Let’s quickly review the cyber threats faced by law firms, and show you how you can use ethical hacking to improve your resilience.

See all the cyber threats here.