Announcing a cyberattack isn't a milestone celebrated by any legal tech company. But cyber incidents occur in legal tech, like any other industry.

Still, instead of rebranding and distancing itself from the incident, legal tech marketers and crisis management professionals recommended legal tech companies who suffered an attack take a different approach. 

"In general, I think the most important thing that any company can do under these circumstances is to be transparent," said Cathy Kenton, co-founder of marketing provider Legal Tech Media Group.

Kenton and other communication professionals stressed legal tech companies should first take steps to fully understand what and how data was impacted. As tech experts confirm aspects of the incident during a forensic investigation and applicable legally required notifications are made, the company should provide details to clients.

Leah Presser, a content and copy writer for legal tech companies, said the status updates should be crafted to foster trust and reshape public perception, including not "hiding behind the company logo," she said. Instead, external communication should come from a higher-up in the organization.

For companies that can't stomach bad press and upset clients after a cyberattack, rebranding is the last solution any company should consider, sources said.

Kenton noted legal tech companies' clientele is less receptive to rebranding. "We are populated with cynics; lawyers and legal professionals are taught to be cynical and question and look for chinks in the armor. Trying to overcome that with rebranding is like putting lipstick on a pig. Someone is going to find out about it and the press is going to go after it," she said.

Indeed, sometimes a company can only improve existing problems and develop new solutions without ignoring previous mishaps. When Assembly Software released its legal case management platform Needles Neos last week, it stressed the new browser-based platform wasn't a reiteration of its case management platform TrialWorks, which went offline last October after a ransomware incident. Though Needles Neos combines TrialWorks' litigation features and Needles' workflow management capabilities, Neos was in development for two years, said Assembly Software CEO Ryan Pakter.

However, Assembly Software did address and adjust TrialWorks' infrastructure after the cyberattack last year, the company noted. Notably, it shifted TrialWorks' infrastructure and customer files, databases and desktops to Microsoft Azure Cloud Services. The migration was one of various initiatives the company took to "improve the security and disaster recovery of our hosting environment, to protect us from cybercrime attacks, such as the ransomware incident which took place this past October," wrote Assembly Software chief technology officer Jim Garrett in an email.

To be sure, rebranding also loses valuable "online branding equity," noted Gina Rubel, founder of legal marketing and law firm public relations firm Furia Rubel Communications Inc, which may prove futile when a law firm vets a product during procurement and discovers the company's cybersecurity history anyway.

It's best, sources said, to remain transparent and issue consistent and timely messages during and post-incident. A legal tech company can also shift the narrative to highlight the insights and experience it gained, Kenton noted.

"Once a company has gone through an incident and comes through the other side they're probably a better company to do business with. They're actually learning where to look for weaknesses and have their systems evaluated."