Protecting Your Law Firm: How to Prevent Email Fraud

Email fraud has become a growing problem, with cybercriminals finding ways to intercept emails and deceive law firms and clients into depositing money into fraudulent accounts. Unfortunately, as these cybercriminals become more successful, their efforts to defraud people are only likely to increase.

As a law firm, it's important to take steps to protect yourself and your clients from these scams. Fortunately, with the right technology and a little bit of effort, it's not difficult to prevent e-mail fraud.

Here are some of the most important steps you can take:

1. Avoid requesting clients to send money via email

As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. One of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent email fraud is to avoid asking clients to send you money via email altogether. This is because emails are relatively easy for cybercriminals to intercept and manipulate, making it easy for them to change account details and trick people into sending money to the wrong place.

Instead, choose a secure communication platform like LawConnect, designed to offer a safe and efficient way for lawyers and clients to exchange sensitive information.

LawConnect's seamless integration with LEAP means that you can securely send payment requests and share confidential documents directly from your matter. You can also set the way clients can access and view the shared correspondence and restrict the editing of your PDF documents before sharing. Therefore eliminating the possibility of unauthorised access or modifying any of the content.

LawConnect safely stores all data on Amazon Web Services servers, ensuring secure backups and peace of mind for users.

2. Call clients to confirm significant deposits

Another important step is to verify significant deposits with clients before you make them. This is especially important if the deposit involves a large amount of money or if it's a one-time payment that you haven't received before. By calling your client to confirm the bank account details, you can ensure that the payment goes to the right place and avoid the risk of fraud.

If you frequently make payments to the same bank account, you can also set up an automatic payment system to streamline the process. However, it's important to ensure that you have verified the bank account details at least once before you set up the system.

3. Educate clients about email fraud

Finally, it's important to educate your clients about email fraud and how they can protect themselves. One way to do this is to include a warning message in your email footer or on your website, informing clients that you will never ask them to deposit money via email.

You can also provide your clients with resources and information about how to identify and avoid email scams. By educating your clients about the risks and how to protect themselves, you can reduce the likelihood of them falling victim to email fraud and help to keep your law firm and your clients safe.

In conclusion, email fraud is a serious problem that all law firms need to take seriously. By implementing these simple but important steps, you can protect yourself and your clients from the risks of email fraud and ensure that your law firm remains safe and secure.

Security is our top priority at LEAP

SOC 2 Type 1 certified

LEAP Legal Software sees security as the foundation upon which our products are built. We are proud to announce that we've earned the globally recognised SOC 2 Type 1 certification, which attests to our unwavering commitment to the highest standards for security and confidentiality in safeguarding our users' data.

Our internal security controls underwent a rigorous and independent audit by AssuranceLab, culminating in this certification. This accreditation validates our dedication to providing a secure and reliable legal software solution.

Built on Amazon Web Services (AWS)

As a true cloud solution, all LEAP data is securely stored on servers built on the AWS (Amazon Web Services) platform. AWS is the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, providing world class data security used by some of the most security sensitive organisations such as NASA, Atlassian and Dow Jones.

LEAP actively works to take advantage of AWS services, following Information Security best practices to ensure that our cloud-based solutions are secure and reliable.

For more information on how we secure your data, access our Information Security Policy.