In the last 20 years, worldwide email use has grown by a factor of over 150x, to almost 100 trillion messages per year. If you feel like you’re sending and receiving a substantial portion of those personally, you’re not alone. Lawyers, like many professionals, report being overwhelmed by their email traffic. And with the increased use of email comes increased risk of accidentally disclosing confidential information.
The legal profession, led by the American Bar Association, has belatedly developed ethical guidelines for lawyers’ transmission and storage of electronic data.
In a webinar sponsored by HB Litigation Conferences and distributed by Thomson Reuters West LegalEdcenter, ReplyToSome co-founder Peter Norman will explore lawyers’ ethical obligations to maintain the confidentiality of their client’s electronic information and with respect to information accidentally received from third parties. The webinar will cover the ABA’s Model Rules 1.6(c) and 4.4(b) and their reception in state-level rules of professional conduct. It will also cover emerging issues in professional malpractice arising from failure to protect clients’ confidential information, including an analysis of the plaintiff’s complaint in the recent case of Shore v. Johnson & Bell, the first class action case brought against a law firm on the grounds of inadequate data security.
Finally, the webinar will cover how lawyers, both at firms and in-house, can develop policies and safeguards to mitigate the risk of disclosing clients’ confidential information.
The webinar is scheduled for 2:00pm on Thursday, April 27, 2017. For more information, click here.
