While many employees in an organization handle data on a day-to-day basis, none are perhaps as exposed as those in the legal department. Attorneys, legal operations and supporting staff often work closely with other departments, and in so doing come into contact with very sensitive data.

A survey by the Business Performance Innovation Network of over 200 corporate professionals, most of whom were in senior management positions, highlighted how vulnerable that data is. The report, titled “Getting Control of Document Flow: Exploring Exposure and Risk in Document-Related Data Breaches,” found that over half of survey respondents were most concerned about the theft or disclosure of legal documents and documents legal departments regularly touch, such as contracts and IP and trade secret information.

“The legal department must be a crucial player to protect documents,” said a CISO of a Fortune 500 company who wished to remain unnamed. To accomplish this, he advised that corporate legal departments should deploy certain security technologies, such as a document management system that “locks down” and tracks all sensitive documents in a centralized digital repository.