Navigating SOC 2 Compliance as a Law Firm

If you run a law firm, chances are you need SOC compliance. Nonetheless, complying with SOC 2 isn’t a mean feat. Getting the initial report alone requires significant time, resources, and effort. Often, many people think that SOC 2 compliance doesn’t apply to law firms. However, this isn’t the case because law firms collect huge volumes of data from their clients.

In today’s tech-savvy legal practice, firms have moved past storing client data in filing cabinets. Legal practitioners are increasingly leveraging the technology that is available to them, to store their clients’ data. With the ever-growing number of cyber-attacks, it’s imperative that you keep the data secure besides ensuring that it remains available. The data also needs to be kept confidential and processed with confidentiality.

If your law firm stores its data on the cloud, you’ll certainly need SOC 2 compliance. Unfortunately, many legal practitioners don’t know where or how to embark on their SOC 2 compliance journey. If you are caught up in this situation, you’ll need to be guided on how to effortlessly navigate the intricate world of SOC compliance.

Why SOC 2 Is Important To Your Law Firm

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) established the SOC 2 auditing standard to test organisations’ internal controls regarding information security and privacy. By attaining compliance status, you’ll be informing your clients that they can trust your law firm to handle their data with utmost care and discretion.

SOC 2 compliance is relevant to all businesses that store customer data on the cloud. This standard isn’t just necessary for protecting your law firm and its clients from data breaches. It is also important for boutique law firms that are seeking to move upmarket.

By attaining compliance status, you’ll be informing your clients that they can trust your law firm to handle their data with utmost care and discretion.

Some lucrative clients will expect you to meet the same compliance standards as other vendors that they have. SOC 2 might be one of the requisite compliance requirements. Therefore, a savvy law firm should use SOC 2 as a competitive distinguisher since compliance proves that the firm is credible, established, and attuned to its customers’ needs.

The SOC 2 Scope

For your law firm to become SOC 2 compliant, it needs to undergo an audit. Consequently, it will receive a report that highlights the quality of the controls that you have in place. The type and criteria of the trust services that you choose will determine the scope of your audit test.  

Trust Services Criteria

Generally, SOC 2 reports test against five trust services criteria. These are confidentiality, privacy, security, availability, and processing integrity. Before engaging an auditor, you must decide which among the five criteria you’d like tested. You can also choose to have all the five trust services criteria tested.

The security criteria are mandatory in all SOC 2 assessments because it sets all-encompassing security standards for your law firm. It also overlaps the other criteria by setting controls for confidentiality, privacy, processing integrity, and availability. The security criteria ensures that your clients’ data and the systems that handle it are secure at all times.

The availability criteria ensure that your systems are not only secure but also available to clients to use whenever they expect to. It addresses network performance, security event handling, downtime, etc. It’s important to guarantee clients access to your services and their data at all times.

The confidentiality criteria are meant to ensure the utmost protection of confidential information that is in your law firm’s possession. If you agreed to keep some of your clients’ information confidential, this criteria is for you. The confidentiality criteria provide guidelines for the identification, protection, and destroying confidential information.

The privacy criteria entails the protection of clients’ personal data. These criteria determine whether your law firm effectively protects its clients’ personal information. It addresses how you collect, store, and handle personal information, including clients’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and any other identifying information.

The processing integrity criteria ensures that you are providing clients with the agreed-upon services in an accurate, timely, and authorized manner. This criterion addresses processing errors and the time that it takes to identify and fix them. It also addresses issues regarding the incident-free storage and preservation of data in your possession.

Thanks to the processing integrity criteria, you’ll be able to tell whether system inputs and outputs that you use are free from manipulation and unauthorised access. It demonstrates to clients that your data, processes, and systems are working as intended, and therefore, they shouldn’t worry about any inaccuracies, errors, or delays.

To make your law firm S0C 2-compliant, it’s advisable to engage a team of experts who will create protocols for compliance. The firm’s data will be monitored by experts who will also set up and responds to any security alerts. This way, it will be easy to distinguish real threats from false positives whenever an anomalous activity occurs. Working with SOC 2 compliance experts eases the compliance journey.

https://www.lawyer-monthly.com/2020/04/navigating-soc-2-compliance-as-a-law-firm/

Custody Issues Amid Pandemic

The New York Times considers the custody issues for first responders here.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/family_law/2020/04/custody-issues-amid-pandemic.html

The Benefits of Hiring a Lawyer to Help You Manage Your Properties

Primarily, estate planning refers to a process of arranging the management and disposal of a person’s estate after death. It involves a transfer to the persons you want to receive the properties you own after you die. Unfortunately, dealing with this process is never easy. There are many rules to consider in terms of legal and strategic sense, which is why working with a lawyer to handle these matters is beneficial.

Below are some of the things that estate planning lawyers can do to help manage your properties:

Offer Expert Assistance

Again, estate planning or property management can be a complicated process. Without a lawyer on your side, things might become more difficult for you, especially when it comes to managing your properties at the time of your death. Generally, a lawyer will offer you expert guidance on the things you need to do with your assets.

For instance, they’ll find time to know you, your family background, finances, and many more. Using their legal expertise, they’ll help you understand the basics of drafting different kinds of documents, including the financial power of attorney.

Moreover, getting a lawyer to assist you can give you complete peace of mind regarding the ways you want your properties to be handled. If you have an in-depth understanding of how estate planning works, you can get things done properly.

A lawyer will offer you expert guidance on the things you need to do with your assets.

Help Manage Multiple Properties Efficiently To Avoid Trouble

If you have lots of assets and properties, you might find it difficult to administer all of them. This is one of the reasons why you should hire a lawyer to assist you in managing your properties efficiently.

You should remember that estate planning involves asset titling and beneficiary designations. With that, the lawyer you hire can check your properties and make sure they’re enough to cover your designated beneficiaries. They’ll make sure that everything goes smoothly with the administration of your wealth to avoid costly and unnecessary probate proceedings and payment of estate taxes.

Keep Your Estate Plan Up-To-Date

Having a proper estate plan can be a great way to manage your properties and prepare for the financial future of your family. Since it involves future circumstances, it’s susceptible to change, and as such, needs to be revisited and updated from time to time.

To keep your estate plan updated, hiring a lawyer can be a great option. They’ll give your plan a thorough assessment and come up with the best suggestions on what changes need to be made. If you have an updated estate plan, you can rest knowing that all your provisions in your plan are executed following your wishes.

Make Sure That All Estate-Related Documents Comply With The Law

Managing your properties for estate planning requires the drafting of necessary documents such as health care directives, trusts, and powers of attorney. To make the preparation process smoother, you need the services of a licensed lawyer to help you draft the documents in accordance with the current state law.

For example, the formalities required for estate planning documents vary from one state to another. Thus, if you want to ensure that your plans are within the scope of your state laws, don’t hesitate to work with a legal professional.

Know-How To Tackle Complex Situations

Again, property administration is never easy, especially if you’re handling complex documents like living trusts. Thus, if you’re looking to manage your assets through living trusts, make sure you have a lawyer with you who knows exactly how to navigate complex situations. Also, they can guide you in distributing your properties based on specific guidelines to avoid losing money for unnecessary reasons. From dealing with the probate process to making decisions regarding your estate, a lawyer can help maximize your properties and ensure that you’re using them properly.

Wrapping Up

Simply put, hiring a lawyer to help you manage your properties comes with great benefits. When you know you’ve set everything for the future of your family, you have nothing to worry about because you have the right legal professional by your side to help you with the process.

Therefore, keep these benefits in mind, and you’ll be more confident to administer your assets to secure your family’s needs after your death.

https://www.lawyer-monthly.com/2020/03/the-benefits-of-hiring-a-lawyer-to-help-you-manage-your-properties/

Stages of a Car Accident Lawsuit

In the hours and days after being injured in a car accident that someone else caused, you will likely be experiencing a variety of overwhelming concerns and worries about how you are going to be able to move forward from this frustrating situation. How will you be able to keep your income steady while recovering? How long will you be incapacitated? Who is going to cover all of the costs that keep popping up? Most likely, you will be filing a claim with the other driver’s insurance company as soon as possible, at which point you will have a claims adjuster assigned to your case.

The insurance adjuster will spend the next days or weeks investigating your case and ultimately determining how much the insurance company will offer you for a settlement. More often than not, the offer that an insurance company ultimately makes to a victim of an accident is a pittance compared to the amount that the victim rightfully deserves. The insurance adjuster spends their time investigating every possible reason to reduce your settlement amount, which is why you should have your own support. Consider how one-sided this investigation process can be—there is someone working full-time on behalf of the insurance company to limit your settlement, and if you do not have help, then you will need to build your own counter-argument while you are trying to recover from your injuries.

The following is an overview of the steps you will go through after a car accident, with or without an attorney.

Filing Your Insurance Claim

The first step is to notify the relevant insurance companies about the accident. You will have collected the other driver’s insurance information at the scene of the accident (if the driver was not insured, then you will file a claim with your own insurance company), and will need to submit your claim within a set amount of time. Once you file your claim, the insurance company will initiate an investigation.

Working With a Claims Adjuster

Once the claims period is started, a claims adjuster will begin work on your case by investigating all relevant information. In many cases, you will need to attend an independent medical exam in order for the adjuster to verify the injuries that you are claiming to have suffered. Your attorney will likely advise that you get your own medical exam as close to the IME as possible in order to have another body of evidence to compare the “independent” doctor’s findings. Keep in mind that this doctor is contracted by the insurance company, so having an attorney guide you through the exam is a great way to ensure that you do not accidentally complicate your case.

You May also be Interested In:

What Should You Do When You Have Been in an Accident?

Negotiating Your Settlement

Once the claims investigation is concluded, the insurance company will make an initial settlement offer. While insurance companies generally like to position this offer as the maximum amount, this is nowhere near true. You or your attorney will now begin a series of negotiations with the team representing the insurance company with the hopes of reaching an agreement about a settlement that actually makes sense for your case. Your negotiations will rely on extensive research into the economic and non-economic damage amounts that you and your attorney have calculated.

Settling, or Filing a Complaint

If you are able to reach an agreement, then you will be able to accept your settlement amount and close this stressful chapter of your life with the financial support you deserve. If not, then you or your attorney will need to file an official complaint in court which will initiate an official lawsuit. Once filed, you will need to go through a discovery phase, undergo a deposition and gather evidence from other involved parties through sworn testimonies, and then reapproach the negotiation table.

Preparing For Trial

Once the discovery phase is concluded, you will have another opportunity to negotiate with the new information that you have uncovered. If this negotiation fails, then you will need to begin to prepare for trial, where your case will be heard in front of a judge and/or jury, and the outcome of your lawsuit will be determined by someone other than you, your lawyer, and the team that you have been negotiating with up to this point.

https://www.lawyer-monthly.com/2020/03/stages-of-a-car-accident-lawsuit/

Spousal Support Law in Markham Holam Law PC 1-365-608-6161

Spousal support could be one of the most contentious issues in a separation. Who will be entitled to spousal support , of what quantum and for how long, are issues many spouses find difficult to figure out and understand upon a introduction to the relationship.

Is my Spouse Entitled to Spousal Support ?

Whether a spouse is entitled to spousal support is a complex legal issue. entitlement isn't automatic inspite of the spousal support guidelines . A spouse must demonstrate on an equilibrium of probabilities that he or she is entitled to receive spousal support from the other spouse. Once entitlement is established, only then does one glance at the quantum, meaning the total to become paid, and also the duration, meaning how much time it paid. With all of these aspects to bear in mind, many separating spouses chose the issue of spousal support confusing and challenging.

Entitlement can arise from circumstances of and roles adopted during being married or from a common-law relationship. The determination of entitlement to spousal support is grounded in circumstances of the bond and its breakdown, and is particularly therefore fact-specific. No two cases are about the same. It truly is for this reason that obtaining advice from a legal professional to evaluate whether you and your spouse are entitled can be so important. Only at Holam Law PC , we have now the feeling and expertise to assist you through this analysis in order to help resolve issues of spousal support.

Spousal Support Law in Markham Holam Law PC 1-365-608-6161

Spousal support can be the most contentious issues in a separation. Who is entitled to spousal support , with what quantum and how long, are issues many spouses find difficult to grasp and understand upon a breakdown of the relationship.

Is my Spouse Eligible to Spousal Support ?

Whether a spouse is permitted spousal support is a complex legal issue. entitlement just isn't automatic in spite of the spousal support guidelines . A spouse must demonstrate on an account balance of probabilities that she or he is allowed receive spousal support with the other spouse. Once entitlement is established, only then will you evaluate the quantum, meaning the exact amount to be paid, and also the duration, meaning the length of time it should be paid. With many of these aspects to contemplate, many separating spouses discover the issue of spousal support confusing and challenging.

Entitlement either can arise from the conditions of and roles adopted during a spousal relationship or at a common-law relationship. The determination of entitlement to spousal support is grounded in instances of their bond as well as its breakdown, and it is therefore fact-specific. No two cases are about the same. It's because of this that obtaining advice from an attorney to assess whether you or your spouse are entitled is really important. You will come to Holam Law PC , we certainly have the feeling and expertise to guide you through this analysis in order to help resolve issues of spousal support.

Spousal Support Law in Markham Holam Law PC 1-365-608-6161

Spousal support is usually essentially the most contentious issues in the separation. Who's going to be eligible to spousal support , of what quantum and for how long, are issues many spouses find difficult to understand and understand upon a breakdown of the relationship.

Is my Spouse Qualified for Spousal Support ?

Whether a spouse is allowed spousal support is actually a complex legal issue. entitlement will not be automatic in spite of the spousal support guidelines . A spouse must demonstrate on an account balance of probabilities that he or she is qualified for receive spousal support through the other spouse. Once entitlement is established, only then can you glance at the quantum, meaning the exact amount to become paid, plus the duration, meaning how much time it must be paid. With many of these aspects to consider, many separating spouses discover the issue of spousal support confusing and challenging.

Entitlement may either arise from situations of and roles adopted during a marriage or originating from a common-law relationship. The determination of entitlement to spousal support is grounded in circumstances of the link and it is breakdown, and it's therefore fact-specific. No two cases are about the same. It is actually this is why that obtaining advice from a legal representative to evaluate whether you or your spouse are entitled is really important. You will come to Holam Law PC , we now have the feeling and expertise to guide you through this analysis and to help resolve issues of spousal support.