James Leary, COO of Dechert LLP will serve as a co-chair to the Thomson Reuters Law Firm COO/CFO/CIO Conference taking place on June 3 in New York City.  This event will focus on data privacy and security and how they affect the global law firm.  Leary has attended various Thomson Reuters events previously, but this will be his first time serving in a leadership capacity at an event.  Leary says, “I’m looking forward to furthering my knowledge, and I think it's healthy to hear what others are doing.”

Leary has been involved with law firm leadership for over thirty years, and he has seen the issues surrounding IT change dramatically.  Leary says, “the big technology decisions used to be should we upgrade the IBM Display Writers?  The emphasis was always on the technology--data security and privacy were always an afterthought.”  Leary observes that cybersecurity has become more of an issue, but it has happened gradually. He says, “In the 90’s, security become more of a concern as the internet become more prevalent, and it’s only grown from there.”

But now, Cybersecurity has clearly taken center-stage.  Leary notes, “every time you pick a newspaper, someone else has just gotten hacked.”  With the media attention paid to data breaches, it’s become clear that they can be embarrassing from a public relations perspective, as well as financially detrimental.  Leary says, “Recent breaches were eye-opening--hackers are reading and leaking emails, not just looking for credit card information and pin numbers.”  While it’s clear now to even a casual observer that data breaches are a huge liability for companies, this is something that law firms, especially firms with international clients or clients in the financial industry have been anticipating for quite some time.  Leary says, “Those involved know [cybersecurity] is mission critical.  If it’s not top of mind, it should be.”  

Leary goes so far as to say that “Cybersecurity is the most important thing on the agenda, from an administrative standpoint.”   In Leary’s view, taking care of a law firm’s data security--or any large company’s data security, involves leadership from several areas of the company. Of course, the Chief Information Officer has a sizable role to play on the technical decisions with the technology, but the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Operating Officer have a huge role to play as well.  Leary says, “the CFO is a steward of money and needs to be involved in the investments made to protect the client’s and the firm’s data, and has to be involved with laying out the game plan, and the budget of the game plan, and the COO has to oversee it all.” Cybersecurity is a multi-faceted issue, and with the growth of mobile and tablet technology and it requires the CFO, the CIO and the COO to make a plan to determine the new initiatives.

Ultimately, Leary says, “everybody needs to be responsible for cybersecurity-- the attorney leadership as well as the administrative leadership.” Everyone involved needs to be aware of what they are clicking on, of potential threats and vulnerabilities.  Setting up an environment of awareness is important, and it requires a concerted effort from leadership to set up that cognizance.  Leary says, “Security is everybody’s issue.”

Leary says, “Hackers are getting more sophisticated, and this is not an issue that is going away.”  Coming up with a strategy to protect your company’s information-- and your client’s information--is crucial in today’s hacker threatened, information saturated world.

You can learn more about the agenda and topics at the 5th Annual Law Firm CFO/CIO/COO Forum on Data Privacy, Security and the Globalized Law Firm here.