Robert Half Legal recently unveiled the results of a new survey indicating that lawyers are planning to increase cybersecurity spend over the next year, part of an ongoing trend that isn't expected to abate any time soon.

The survey is compiled from the responses of more than 200 U.S. lawyers working either at law firms with upwards of 20 employees or at legal departments with 1,000-plus employees. Among those surveyed, 76 percent said that their organization would increase spending on cybersecurity-related resources over the next 12 months.

Joel Wuesthoff, managing director of Robert Half Legal Consulting Solutions, attributed at least some of that investment to the publicity received by several high-profile data breaches and privacy intrusions.

“You're going to get that kind awareness at the executive level, at the board level, to make [cybersecurity] a priority. And that kind of trickles and that kind of pushes down to the different business units that have responsibility over budget,” Wuesthoff said.

The pressure that firms and legal departments are facing isn't squarely internal. Privacy laws like the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the forthcoming California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have raised the stakes for businesses when it comes to protecting the data in their custody.

In turn, those same companies expect that their service providers and vendors deploy ample cybersecurity measures to avoid costly incidents. Gulam Zade, a partner and general counsel at the legal IT consulting firm Logicforce, said that firms courting business from clients are being presented with questionnaires inquiring about the state of their password or technology use policies.

“I think that the first place that we see the [cybersecurity] spend going is policies,” Zade said.

Exactly how much they'll be spending and where will vary from place to place. The Robert Half Legal survey indicated that on average lawyers were expecting to boost their budgets by 21 percent over the next year.

Of those spending more over the next 12 months, 16 percent indicated that they would be increasing spending significantly, while 60 percent indicated that they would increase their budget “somewhat.” Both numbers stood in stark contrast to the zero percent of respondents who indicated that the would be decreasing their cybersecurity spend on any level.

Wuesthoff attributed the difference between that 16 and 60 percents to varying degrees of preparedness. Some firms have been investing in cybersecurity over time and probably have most of the necessary infrastructure in place, making their spend more about maintenance than the larger expense of having to build something from the ground up.

“I think that you'll see an uptick [in spending] on maybe those that have under-invested,” Wuesthoff said.

So where could that money be headed? Firms could potentially direct some of that spend towards hiring full-time cybersecurity personnel. Wuesthoff said that in talking with colleagues, they've noticed a definite uptick in security practitioner salaries, indicating an overall higher demand for those services in the market.

Zade, on the other hand, thinks that firms are more likely to invest in the tech itself rather than people.

“It's cheaper to buy yourself a technology solution that will comply with a requirement then it is to go out and buy a security officer that's going to do it for you,” Zade said.

Phyllis Sumner, chief privacy officer at the firm of King & Spalding, expects to see money spent on a little bit of both.

On the tech side of the equation, prudent areas of investment might include tools that can detect when data is leaving a protected environment and analytic solutions that distinguish between what passes for normal behavior in a law firm's environment and anomalies that potentially constitute a threat. Over time, Sumner expects to see even more sophistication around cybersecurity programs in law firms.

“We're never done when it comes to cybersecurity, and I do think that we will continue to see an increase in spend,” Sumner said.