As law firms and legal departments finalize their 2018 budgets, many lawyers in both the United States and Canada plan to increase cybersecurity spending.

A recent survey from Robert Half Legal found that 41 percent of U.S. lawyers said that their law firm or company plans to increase spending on cybersecurity-related tools and services in the next 12 months.

“One of the key reasons that legal organizations are increasing spending is that legal organizations recognize they are a particular target for cyberattacks due to the high volume of sensitive information they maintain,” Jamy Sullivan, executive director of Robert Half Legal, told Legaltech News.

“One can consider the significant volume of valuable client data they hold for companies and organizations of all sizes—intellectual property agreements, contracts, customer, supplier and financial information, research on potential corporate mergers, and evidence in potentially high-stakes litigation cases,” Sullivan added. “If this valuable and confidential information falls into the wrong hands, it could prove costly to a law firm as well as its clients, and also cause irreparable damage to brand and reputation.”

Therefore, Sullivan said that many organizations are placing a priority on enhancing data privacy policies. And given the “serious legal and ethics violations” that a law firm can face when losing “a client's confidential data to an attack,” a proactive cybersecurity strategy is “a commonsense strategy,” she noted.

What's more, heightened media focus on breaches and security threats is raising awareness of the importance of security protection. In response, Sullivan said that clients are “applying more pressure onto their legal counsel to safeguard their information.” These factors are leading law firms to shift greater attention and resources to address information security and escalating cyberthreat matters.

“Legal counsel have become integral to an organization's ability to develop and implement cybersecurity defenses that meet regulatory expectations and legal requirements and mitigate legal risks—as well as respond and manage legal issues when a security breach takes place,” Sullivan said. “Law firms and companies are making cybersecurity an important area of focus for their legal and IT [information technology] teams.”

In a related Robert Half survey, 35 percent of Canadian lawyers said that their law firm or company plans to spend more on cybersecurity-related tools and services in the next 12 months.

Gartner has released its own enterprise study that predicts global spending on cybersecurity will increase to $96.3 billion in 2018. That is an increase of 8 percent from 2017. Moreover, Gartner said that security testing, information technology outsourcing, and security information and event management (SIEM) are expected to be “among the fastest-growing security subsegments driving growth in the infrastructure protection and security services segments.”