Law firms invest heavily in the security of client data. Increasingly, their ability to demonstrate those security measures is crucial for retaining and winning new business. Yet many clients overlook law firm technical certifications, and client questionnaires are often repurposed from supply chain risk management. The Data Steward Program (DSP) was designed to meet these challenges.
Built to showcase law firm security
The Data Steward Program is a collaborative effort of law firm and industry information security experts, empowered to make program design and technical controls decisions via ACC-sponsored working groups. As a result, DSP is purpose-built for law firm requirements.
- Controls based on global security standards, selected for applicability to all types of firms, adapted for the legal industry.
- Implemented on the leading internal audit SaaS platform, with 250,000 users and a SOC 2 report available upon request.
- Complete a single questionnaire, and share it with many clients. Proactively convert all your clients to DSP with ACC assistance.
- Client visibility into real-time updates that improve your score.
Assuring client acceptance
ACC is the leading association of in-house counsel, spanning 45,000 professionals, 10,000 organizations and 84 countries. The majority of law firm clients are ACC members, and most are not technical specialists. But they recognize and trust ACC solutions.
- Client attorneys value the push-button implementation, streamlined review, summary scores, scorecard benchmarking, and real-time updates.
- Client security experts approve of the NIST 800-53 controls, mapped to leading frameworks, vetted by leading organizations, and integrated with GRC/VRM systems.
- ACC Accreditation offers an optional, low-cost, streamlined process for independently validating law firm self-assessments. This can reduce or eliminate the need for client audits, which is a significant cost and time savings for both parties.
Leverage the advanced capabilities
In addition to self-assessment capabilities, the Base License gives every law firm advanced features for managing their internal security program.
- Evidence Repository – For internal stakeholders and client audits, maintain a secure repository of compliance evidence.
- Issue Tracking and Remediation – Track and report compliance gaps and remediation activities, task owners and deadlines
- Unlimited Customization – Add custom controls beyond DSP for tracking issues and evidence unique to your firm.
- Client Audits – Clone your evidence in a secure workspace to support streamlined, remote client audits.
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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