Over 20 associates and trainees at Norton Rose Fulbright’s South Africa offices had unauthorized access to confidential information, including sensitive documents and personal email exchanges between directors, according to sources familiar with an internal probe.

In a statement shared with Law.com International, Norton Rose South Africa CEO Brent Botha confirmed that some of the employees accessed information about internal affairs but the matter has since been resolved. No client information was compromised, he said.

According to sources, the management team held a brief meeting with a group of junior lawyers at the firm on October 28, where it gave those implicated in the IT probe until midday on November 1 to disclose the amount of information they accessed, the frequency of access and what they did with the information.

They were told those who came forward with full disclosure would be offered forgiveness and leniency, but those who withheld further information about their involvement could face disciplinary action, according to someone close to the matter.

“There can be no excuse for reading something pertinently marked as confidential and which was not addressed to you,” one of the firm leaders said during the meeting.

The October 28 meeting was followed by a letter, seen by Law.com International, that came from the firm’s CEO and officially notified those implicated in the investigation of the window period for confession.

“An internal investigation has confirmed that some associates and candidate attorneys indeed accessed information and directors' non-matter folders over a projected period of time. We have an extensive list of who accessed what,” the letter said.

But some of the lawyers, who spoke on condition that they not be named, blamed the breach on the inadequacies of iManage, the document and email management platform for legal professionals acquired by the firm over two decades ago.

Norton Rose bought a license for iManage's full product suite in the early 2000s after it switched from rival software Hummingbird, citing the need for a robust system architecture and collaboration functionality.

FileSite, a major collaborative function of the iManage package, gives staff access to their colleagues' emails and folders—except when a digital lock is activated, according to Norton Rose employees. Some of the directors and other lawyers who are not tech-savvy do not usually activate the necessary privacy measures, they added.

iManage declined to comment for this story.

Meanwhile, sources told Law.com International the IT probe and the quest for confessions have created tension within the firm, especially among those in the junior ranks. “People are scared and anxious. They also feel that they are being treated unfairly,” one lawyer said.

Another lawyer involved explained that the firm's policy specifies that it is the responsibility of the person saving a document on iManage to secure it. “It’s not the associates’ fault for seeing it when it is saved on a public platform,” the lawyer said.

It remains unclear whether any issues relating to the probe are continuing and if there will be further disciplinary action.

Norton Rose declined to comment further.

Norton Rose counts a total of 136 lawyers across its offices in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, based on data from Law.com Compass.