IT support for El Paso law firms
TechBit Solutions supports El Paso law firms with document systems, controlled access by matter, and a written account of your safeguards for the clients and insurers who ask.
What law firms call us about
TechBit Solutions supports law firms in El Paso, from solo practitioners to firms with several dozen staff.
The calls are usually one of four things. A document management system that has stopped responding. An email that may or may not have been a phishing attempt. A question from a client or an insurer about how their data is protected. And a filing deadline with a machine that will not cooperate.
What we support
- Practice management and document management systems
- Email, including secure delivery when a matter requires it
- Document storage with permissions set by matter, not by whoever asked
- Time and billing systems
- Court and filing portal access, and the browser problems that come with it
- Backup and recovery of the file, which is the firm's entire product
- Remote access for attorneys working from home, court or another office
- Phones, including calls that need to reach an attorney who is not at their desk
Confidentiality and the duty of competence
Everything a law firm holds is confidential, and the obligation does not soften because the failure was technical.
The practical questions we help firms answer are the ones that come up in client audits and insurance renewals: who can see which matters, what happens to a departing attorney's access, whether email is encrypted in transit, where backups live, and how quickly a breach would be noticed.
- Access controlled by matter and by role, reviewed rather than assumed
- Multi-factor authentication on every account without exception
- A documented process for onboarding and offboarding, so access ends on the day it should
- Encryption on every laptop that leaves the office
- Logging, so the question of what was accessed and when has an answer
- A written summary of your safeguards you can hand to a client who asks
Practice management and document systems
A firm's document system is the firm. When it is slow, every attorney is slower, and the cost is measured in billable hours rather than in tickets.
We monitor these systems rather than waiting for someone to complain, and we keep the search index healthy, because a document nobody can find is functionally lost.
When a filing deadline is at stake
Some problems in a law firm are urgent in a way that most businesses do not experience. A filing deadline does not move because a scanner stopped working.
TechBit Solutions answers in minutes during our hours, 5am to 8pm Mountain, and the after-hours line at (915) 253-9757 reaches a person. Tell us when a deadline is involved and it goes to the front.
Departing attorneys and staff
The riskiest day in a law firm's technology is the day somebody leaves, particularly if they are leaving to practise elsewhere.
Access needs to end at a known time, on every system rather than the obvious ones, and the firm needs a record of what was accessed and copied in the period before. Handled properly this is a short checklist. Handled badly it becomes a dispute where nobody can prove anything.
Getting started
We begin with a review of where client data lives and who can reach it. See cybersecurity and compliance support.
Call TechBit Solutions at (915) 629-8888.
Questions we get asked
Do you sign a confidentiality agreement?
Yes. We expect to, and we will not be offended by the terms your firm uses with other vendors.
Can you support our practice management system?
Yes. We take the call whatever the platform is, and we handle the vendor when the fault is theirs rather than passing you their number.
What about the ethical rules on technology?
The Texas Disciplinary Rules require competence, and the commentary around them treats understanding the technology you use as part of that. In practice it means you need to be able to explain how client data is protected. We give you that explanation in writing so it is available when somebody asks.
We are a three-attorney firm. Is this overkill?
No. Small firms hold the same confidential material as large ones and are targeted more often, precisely because attackers assume nobody is watching. Not at all. Some of the El Paso firms we look after are two and three attorneys, and their obligations to a client are no smaller than a hundred-attorney firm's.
What happens if we are hit with ransomware the week of a trial?
That is what the continuity plan is for, and it is why we ask about your calendar. Firms with a rehearsed plan get back to the documents that matter first rather than restoring everything alphabetically.