A law firm sells judgment, and it keeps promises about silence. Clients hand over medical records, financial statements, business plans and family secrets because they trust the firm to keep them private. That trust sits on a handful of computers, a mail system and a phone in a lawyer’s pocket. Good IT support for law firms starts with protecting that trust.
Zippie IT provides IT support for law firms, from solo practices to mid-sized firms, across Boise, Meridian, Eagle, Nampa and Caldwell. We are a veteran-owned company in Meridian, and we work in the background so lawyers can stay on the matter.
One compromised mailbox, many clients
Attackers do not need to break into a firm’s case management system. They need one lawyer’s email password. From inside a real mailbox they can read old threads, learn who is expecting money and send a believable message from a trusted address. Because a firm’s inbox holds correspondence from dozens of matters, a single incident can touch every client who wrote in the past few years.
That is why sign-in protection and email filtering come first in our work with firms, ahead of anything fancy.
Wire fraud and the trust account
The most expensive attacks on law firms are quiet. A fake message arrives in the middle of a real estate closing or a settlement: please send the funds to this new account. The email thread is genuine, the timing is perfect and the instructions look routine. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center ranks this kind of business email compromise among the costliest crimes it tracks.
We help firms build simple habits and controls around it:
- A call-back rule, using a number from your file, for any change to wiring instructions.
- Alerts on forwarding rules and unusual sign-ins in staff mailboxes.
- Separate approvals for trust account transfers, backed by how your bank portal is set up.
- Staff training that uses real examples, not a slide deck.
Where client files actually live
Ask a managing partner where client files are and you will hear about the document system. Ask the people who work there and you will hear about downloads folders, personal phones, scanned PDFs on a copier and a shared drive nobody has cleaned up in years. We map the real picture first, then tidy it:
- Who can open which matters, and whether access ends when someone leaves the firm.
- Whether laptops and phones are encrypted, so a lost bag is an inconvenience, not a disclosure.
- Whether backups exist, are kept apart from the office and have actually been restored in a test.
- How litigation holds and retention rules are handled when files are stored in several places.
IT support for law firms: what a small firm needs
- Multi-factor authentication on email, the document system and the trust account portal.
- Email protection that catches impersonation, not just obvious spam.
- Encrypted devices and a way to wipe a lost one.
- Tested backups with a written recovery plan.
- Patching that happens on schedule, outside billable hours.
- A short incident plan that says who calls whom, including your insurer and, where it applies, your clients.
Our managed IT services cover these items for a fixed monthly fee, and our cybersecurity services add monitoring for firms that want more. If you carry or are applying for cyber coverage, see cyber insurance readiness.
What we do not do
We do not give legal advice and we do not interpret the rules of professional conduct for you. Your own ethics counsel or the Idaho State Bar can answer what is reasonable for your practice. We handle the technology side, we sign a confidentiality agreement before we see anything, and we keep our access to client data to what the work requires.
Get started
If you want IT support for law firms that respects both confidentiality and billable hours, the easiest first step is a free network and security review. We review your email, devices and backups, write up what we find within about a day of getting access and talk it over with you. There is no obligation. You can also contact us or call (208) 810-1795.
We use your details to respond to your request. If you want details, see our Privacy Policy.
Frequently asked questions
What does IT support for law firms include?
Day-to-day help for staff, protection for email and devices, tested backups, patching outside billable hours and a written plan for incidents, all for a fixed monthly fee.
Do the ethics rules require specific cybersecurity measures?
Lawyers have a duty to protect client information and are expected to take reasonable steps. What is reasonable depends on the firm and the data it holds. Check with the Idaho State Bar or your own ethics counsel, because we do not give legal advice.
Can you work with the practice management software we already use?
Yes. We secure and support the systems around it, such as sign-in, devices, email, backups and networks, and we work with your software vendor when something needs their help.
A client asked about our security. Can you help us answer?
Yes. Clients, insurers and corporate counsel increasingly send questionnaires. We help you answer accurately and fix the gaps the answers reveal.
How do you handle confidential files when you are supporting our systems?
We sign a confidentiality agreement first, use individual accounts, limit access to what a task needs and keep a record of what we touch.
What happens if a lawyer’s email is compromised?
We contain it: reset access, review forwarding rules and sign-in history, check for fraudulent messages, help you decide whom to notify and restore normal operation. We recommend having this plan written down before it happens.