IT requirements for a new law firm in BC: a practical setup checklist

Opening a law practice in BC means setting up an office, a trust account, insurance and a practice-management system. IT usually gets left to the last week, which is when it is most expensive and most rushed. This guide lists what a new sole practitioner or small firm in BC actually needs from its technology, in roughly the order to decide on it. It is general information for planning, not legal advice. Your professional obligations are set by the Law Society of BC, so check its current rules and guidance, and ask your own advisors where a decision carries real risk.

Start with the obligations, not the gadgets

Lawyers in BC owe clients a duty of confidentiality under the Law Society's Code of Professional Conduct. A law firm is also an organization that collects and uses personal information, so BC's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) applies as well. Neither document tells you which firewall to buy. What they do is set the outcome your IT has to deliver: client information is seen only by people who should see it, it is kept safe from loss and theft, and you can show how you made your choices.

That last point matters most when something goes wrong. If a laptop is stolen or a mailbox is taken over, the useful questions are whether the device was encrypted, whether multi-factor authentication was on, and whether you can show you thought about it beforehand. Write your decisions down as you go. A one-page technology record costs an afternoon and is worth far more than reconstructing your reasoning after an incident.

1. Email and identity: the part attackers go after first

For most small firms, email is the single biggest exposure. It holds client correspondence, it is the route by which funds-transfer instructions arrive, and it is the account everything else resets through.

• One professional email domain. Use your own domain, not a free webmail address. It lets you control mailboxes, apply security policies and move providers later without changing every client's address book.
• Multi-factor authentication on every account from day one. This is the cheapest control available and it stops most password-based takeovers. Prefer an authenticator app or a hardware key over text messages where you can.
• Separate administrator accounts. The account you use to read email should not also be the one that can change security settings or delete the tenant.
• Phishing and impersonation protection. Law firms are attractive targets because money moves through them. Mailbox rules, external-sender banners and a habit of confirming payment changes by phone using a number you already hold all help.
• A password manager. Shared logins written on sticky notes are a common finding in small offices. A password manager gives staff unique passwords without asking them to memorize any.

2. Practice-management and accounting software

Most new firms choose a cloud practice-management product such as Clio, Actionstep or LEAP, or a desktop accounting product such as PCLaw. The right pick depends on your practice area, how many people you have and how you prefer to bill, and it is a decision for you and the vendor rather than for your IT provider.

What IT can do is make sure the environment around the software is sound:

• Computers that are patched, encrypted and managed, so the application is not running on a neglected laptop.
• Access controls matching roles. A part-time assistant does not need access to trust-accounting records.
• A clear understanding of where the vendor's data is hosted, what the vendor's own backups cover and how you would export your data if you left. Ask the vendor these questions in writing before you sign.
• A tested backup of anything the vendor does not back up for you, such as local documents and desktop databases.

Trust accounting deserves the strongest protection in the office. The Law Society has detailed trust accounting rules, and your systems should make it hard to get around them: restricted access, an audit trail where the software provides one, and backups you have actually restored from.

3. Where client documents live

Decide early where documents are stored, because moving thousands of files later is painful. The realistic options for a small firm are cloud storage inside your Microsoft 365 tenant, the document module of your practice-management system, or a local file server or NAS. Many firms use a mix.

Whichever you choose, keep these principles. Use one authoritative location per matter rather than copies scattered across desktops and USB sticks. Control access by matter or team where the firm is large enough to need it. Set retention to match your file-retention obligations, so closed files are neither lost early nor kept forever without reason. Confirm that a file deleted by mistake can be recovered.

4. Cloud computing and due diligence

The Law Society of BC has published guidance on cloud computing for lawyers. In broad terms, using a cloud service does not remove your responsibility for client confidentiality. You remain accountable, so you need to understand how the provider protects data, who can access it, where it is stored and what happens when the relationship ends.

A practical checklist when you assess a provider:

• What security controls does the provider describe (encryption, access logging, MFA, independent audits)?
• Where is the data stored, and does the provider's contract let it change that without telling you?
• Who at the provider can access your data, and under what circumstances?
• What happens if the provider is breached, and how quickly will they tell you?
• How do you get your data back, in a usable format, if you leave or they shut down?

Keep the answers in a short file. We can help you gather the technical facts, but whether a provider meets your professional obligations is a judgment for you, and where it is unclear the Law Society's practice advisors are the right people to ask.

5. Laptops, phones and working from anywhere

A modern law practice is mobile: court, a client's kitchen table, home and the office. Every device that opens client files is part of your security boundary.

• Full-disk encryption on every laptop, so a lost bag is an inconvenience rather than a breach.
• Managed devices. Screen locks, automatic updates and the ability to remotely lock or wipe a lost device.
• A rule for personal devices. If staff will use their own phones for email, set conditions such as a passcode, a managed mail app and wipe-on-loss for the work data.
• Safe home and public networks. Avoid unprotected public Wi-Fi for client work, and use a VPN or, better, cloud tools that do not need one.
• Printing and scanning. Printers and multifunction scanners store and transmit documents. Secure their settings and decide where scans go.

6. The office network

If you work from a shared office suite or an executive suite, find out what network you are actually on. Shared building Wi-Fi is not a place for client files. For a small office, a business-grade firewall, a separate guest network and a managed Wi-Fi setup are modest purchases that remove a lot of risk. If you work entirely from home, the same logic applies: separate your work devices from the household's smart TVs and game consoles where you can.

7. Backup that has been restored, not just scheduled

Every firm says it has backups. Fewer have restored a file from them recently. Decide how much work you can afford to lose (hours, not days, for most practices) and how long you can afford to be without your files, and set the backup to match. Cloud services like Microsoft 365 are not a full backup by default: they keep deleted items for limited periods, and an attacker or a mistake can still destroy data. Keep at least one backup copy that a compromised account cannot erase, and test a restore on a schedule. We wrote more on why this fails quietly in why your backups probably aren't working.

8. Voice, fax and e-signature

Many clients and courts still use fax, and many documents now move by e-signature. Choose an e-fax or e-signature service whose security you have reviewed, rather than whichever the first client happened to send. Use a business phone line or app rather than a personal mobile number, and consider whether call recordings or voicemail transcripts hold client information.

9. Insurance and incident planning

Cyber insurance and professional liability coverage often ask about MFA, backups and endpoint protection on their applications. Answer them truthfully, and if you cannot answer yes, fix the control before you apply. Also write a half-page incident plan: who you call first (your IT provider, your insurer, the Law Society's practice advisors as appropriate), how you stop the spread, and how you will tell clients if their information was exposed. Having this on paper before a bad day is the point.

10. Who looks after all this

A sole practitioner can handle some of it alone, and a managed IT provider becomes worthwhile when the number of devices, accounts and obligations outgrows your evenings. The options are an in-house hire (rarely sensible below a certain size), a managed service provider on a monthly plan, or ad hoc break-fix help. What matters is that someone is accountable for patching, backups, access and the documentation described above, and that you can reach them when it is urgent. Our comparison of managed IT versus hiring in-house covers the trade-offs.

A short setup checklist

• Own domain and business email with MFA on every account
• Separate admin accounts and a password manager
• Encrypted, managed laptops with automatic updates
• Practice-management and accounting software chosen, with vendor security questions answered in writing
• One agreed home for client documents, with retention rules
• A tested backup, including at least one copy out of reach of a compromised account
• Business-grade firewall and a separate guest network at the office
• A short written record of your cloud due diligence
• A half-page incident plan and the right insurance answers

Clearpine Technologies is an Abbotsford managed IT provider that supports sole practitioners and small firms across the Fraser Valley and Lower Mainland, in person and remotely. If you are opening a practice and want the technology set up properly the first time, see our page on IT support for law firms in BC or get in touch.