A law firm has requirements that generalist IT does not grasp
Absolute confidentiality, case files that grow for years, court deadlines that cannot move, communications with clients and opposing parties: a law firm’s IT has to be secure, orderly and always available. Xion IT Group works with law firms combining IT management, security, privacy and — now — document-based artificial intelligence.
What we do for law firms
- An internal document AI assistant — search across the firm’s documents, summaries of case files, drafts of recurring pleadings and letters, always under the lawyer’s supervision;
- An AI policy consistent with professional conduct rules and privilege;
- Encrypted backup and disaster recovery with XRB — case files survive failure, theft and ransomware;
- Email security and anti-phishing — the number one attack route into firms;
- Multi-factor authentication and access control for confidential matters and documents;
- GDPR and data protection (our method);
- A secure client portal for exchanging documents without unprotected email;
- Ongoing IT support with SLAs and immediate remote assistance.
Where to start
For most firms the natural route begins with two quick checks: a security review (backup, access, email) and an analysis of document flows to see where AI would save the most hours. Both are part of the first consultation, which is free.
The IT requirements only a law firm knows
A law firm’s IT has constraints that a generalist supplier struggles to grasp. The long-term retention of case files, which must stay accessible and intact for years. The chain of custody over documents, where every change has to be traceable. Managing court deadlines, where a mistake is not an inconvenience but a loss. The need to share documents with clients and opposing parties without entrusting them to unprotected email or improvised cloud services. And, above all, professional privilege, which demands a standard of confidentiality higher than ordinary business practice. Xion designs a firm’s infrastructure holding all of these together rather than one at a time.
From paper to digital, securely
Many firms still live alongside paper archives and hybrid flows that slow the work down and multiply the risks. Document digitisation done properly — scanning with text recognition, automatic classification, searchable filing — turns years of folders into an archive that can be consulted in seconds. Add a document AI assistant and finding a precedent or a passage among thousands of pages becomes immediate. All of it with permissions set by matter and by member of staff, so each person reaches only what concerns them.
The three moments when a firm cannot stop
An IT failure in a law firm is almost never an inconvenience spread thinly: it is a risk concentrated into a few precise hours.
The day of a deadline. A court deadline does not move because a server will not start. This is why response times matter more in a firm than the power of the infrastructure, and why they belong in the contract rather than in a promise.
During an electronic filing. Digital signature, timestamp, receipts: a chain where a single link out of place — an expired certificate, a card reader no longer recognised after an update — blocks everything at the worst moment. These are trivial faults that become serious only because of when they happen, and they are prevented by tracking certificate expiry dates.
When a file from ten years ago is needed. A firm’s archive does not age out: a document from 2015 may be needed tomorrow, and it has to be still readable. That is a different requirement from an ordinary company’s, and it changes how filing and backup are designed.
What we find in firms, almost every time
- Case files on the lawyer’s own computer. Not on the server: on the laptop that travels to court and back. It is the only up-to-date copy, and it moves around.
- Documents exchanged by email, even when they contain third parties’ sensitive data. Not through carelessness: because there is no equally simple alternative, and until there is, nobody changes habit.
- A single shared login to the practice system, used by everyone. Convenient, and it makes it impossible to know who did what.
- No record of who accesses which matters. In a firm where conflicting instructions exist, that is a professional conduct problem before it is a technical one.
- The certified email account forgotten. Set up years ago on one machine, with nobody else able to read it if that person is away.
The financial risk that hits firms harder than others
There is one kind of attack that works particularly well against law firms, and it concerns movements of money between parties. In matters where the firm communicates bank details — property transfers, settlements, enforcement — an attacker who has got into a mailbox waits for the right moment and inserts a credible message carrying different account details.
There is no malware and nothing to block technically: there is a genuine conversation into which a false message has been grafted. The defence is a procedure, namely the rule that bank details are always verified on a different channel from the one that carried the request. The technical measure that goes with it is a second factor on email, which stops the attacker joining that conversation in the first place.
Where we work
Xion IT Group has its head office in Milan and offices in Lecco and Bergamo, and works with professional firms across Lombardy — including the Italian offices of international practices.