Protecting client data is a top priority for law firms, and with the industry shifting toward digital workflows and leveraging legal technology, security is becoming a major concern. The cost of a data breach is staggering, with the average consolidated cost growing from $3.8M to $4.3M from 2015 to 2016. And take for example, DLA Piper's recent ransomware attack that shuttered the firm's day-to-day functionality.

According to 2016 research by Logikcull, included in a law firm's data breach costs are “crisis management services, communications plans, forensic investigations, legal counsel, and fulfillment of state and credit monitoring.” The research also shares how law firms can implement preventative measures to secure their data and prevent these major costs that are associated with a breach. And firms that do not have measures like a disaster recovery plan or certified network security in place to protect their data put themselves at risk.

The first thing to know about the risks of a data breach is that organizations are always at a high-risk. There is always an element of inevitability when it comes to a data breach, because in the digital age we live in, data is always at risk. It's up to businesses, or law firms in this case, to take the responsibility of making sure they're implementing the appropriate measures to prevent a breach from ever happening. While there is the element of inevitability, the severity of a breach is something that can and should be prevented with the proper measures in place.