---
title: "More Companies Telling Law Firms: Show Me Your Cybersecurity"
description: Do you require your outside counsel to prove cybersecurity practices? An increasing number of companies are.
---

[SecureWorld News ](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news)

# [More Companies Telling Law Firms: Show Me Your Cybersecurity](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news/law-firm-cybersecurity-survey)

 Written by [SecureWorld News Team](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news/author/secureworld-news-team) | Thu | Dec 21, 2017 | 12:15 PM Z

The American Bar Association just issued its ABA 2017 TECHREPORT, and the section on cybersecurity identifies several trends. 

### **More businesses are demanding cybersecurity from legal firms**

According to the report, an increasing number of businesses are demanding their law firms have independent third-party security assessments. It's part of the reason a record number of law firms are having outside cybersecurity evaluations. See the chart:

David Ries of Clark Hill PLC authored the [cybersecurity section](https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_practice/publications/techreport/2017/security.html) of the ABA report based on member surveys and research.

"The increased use of security assessments conducted by independent third parties has been a growing security practice for businesses and enterprises generally. Law firms have been slow to adopt this security tool, with only 27% of law firms overall reporting that they had a full assessment, but it did increase from 18% last year."

This is a positive note in the law firm security report.

Have you asked your outside counsel about InfoSec practices? You might want to after seeing the next cybersecurity trend at law firms.

**Security and cybersecurity ****incidents increasing at law firms**

"The *2017 Survey* reveals that about 22% of respondents overall reported that their firms had “ever” experienced a security breach at some point (note: not limited to the past year). A breach broadly includes incidents such as a lost/stolen computer or smartphone, hacker, break-in, or website exploit... an 8% increase after being basically steady from 2013 through 2016."

### **Many law firms lack an incident response plan**

Here at SecureWorld we have certainly covered prominent security breaches during 2017, suchas as [this offshore firm.](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news/major-offshore-law-firm-hacked)

But get this: a disturbing number of law firms do not have an incident response plan for handling a hack or breach that could involve your data.

"A high of 66% of firms with 500+ attorneys report having an incident response plan to address a security breach, followed by 51% in firms of 100-499, 43% of firms of 50-99, 31% of firms of 10-49, 14% of firms of 2-9 attorneys, and 10% of solos." 

In other words, a third of the largest law firms in the U.S. do not have an [incident response plan](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news/best-practices-incident-response-plan), and that number grows as you look at smaller firms.

Here's the question: what does your firm require from your outside counsel to show that cybersecurity is actually being practiced?

[View full post](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news/law-firm-cybersecurity-survey)

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