In-house counsel share their organization’s most sensitive data with outside law firms. Yet 70% of legal departments have no tool for assessing law firm data security, and nearly 30% are dissatisfied with current methods. This is a ‘Top 3’ risk for ACC’s 45,000 members and 10,000 organizations, and our reason for developing the ACC Data Steward Program.
By in-house counsel, for in-house counsel.®
The Data Steward Program is a collaborative effort of attorneys and information security experts, under the direction of ACC’s In-house Advisory Board and Credentialing Institute, that gives legal departments a tool for assessing their law firms’ data security:
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- Based on global security standards, adapted for the legal industry.
- Push-button implementation requiring no technical expertise.
- Streamlined review and benchmarking of law firm scorecards.
- Real-time insight into law firm security profiles for annual evaluations, hiring new firms, or conducting audits at any time.
Meeting the demands of corporate information security
Securing the data you share with third parties is a joint effort with your organization’s information security experts. The Data Steward Program is designed to meet their most rigorous requirements.
- DSP security controls are primarily drawn from NIST 800-53, and mapped to ISO, COBIT and other leading control frameworks.
- The controls have been vetted by dozens of Fortune 500 infosec teams, and can be customized for your industry and company.
- DSP is implemented on the leading internal audit SaaS platform, with 250,000 users and a SOC 2 report available upon request.
- Data points from your law firm security assessments can be integrated into your GRC or Vendor Risk Management system.
At no cost to in-house counsel
Conventional security assessment vendors charge corporations significant fees – for access to the assessment platform, and for each security profile you want to see.
In the ACC model, in-house counsel have unlimited access to the DSP platform, as well as the security profiles of every law firm on their panel – at no cost to in-house counsel.
If a law firm wants to demonstrate compliance with your rigorous security requirements, a low-cost DSP license entitles the firm to create a self-assessment scorecard, share it with clients, host remote client audits, and track remediation efforts for any security gaps.
ACC Accreditation is an optional service for law firms to receive independent validation of their DSP self-assessments. For in-house counsel, this added assurance inspires a high degree of trust, and can eliminate the need for compliance audits. Law firms from 10 attorneys to the AmLaw 10 have found this low-cost, streamlined process gives clients maximum confidence in their security profile.
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