Managed IT & Cybersecurity for Law Firms in British Columbia
Solicitor-client privilege is not just an ethical obligation. It is a technical one. Every unpatched endpoint, every shared password, every unencrypted file transfer is a gap between what your professional conduct rules require and what your IT actually delivers.
The IT problems law firms cannot afford to ignore
Downtime measured in billable hours
When your systems are down, your lawyers cannot bill. A mid-tier associate billing $350 per hour who loses half a day to a server outage costs the firm $1,400 in lost revenue from a single person. Multiply that across the firm. Multiply it across the frequency of incidents. The math is unambiguous, and most lawyers understand it immediately. Unreliable IT is not an inconvenience. It is a direct revenue loss.
Solicitor-client privilege as an infrastructure problem
The Law Society of BC requires that you maintain the confidentiality of client information. That obligation extends to your technology. When client files sit on an unencrypted laptop, when email attachments travel without TLS, when a departing associate retains access to the document management system for weeks after leaving, privilege is compromised at the infrastructure level. The professional conduct rules do not distinguish between a human breach and a technical one.
Clio in the cloud with nothing managed locally
Clio moves your practice management to the cloud, and that is a reasonable decision for most BC firms. But your workstations, your local network, your printers, your scanners, and your endpoints are still your responsibility. Clio does not patch your Windows machines. Clio does not segment your network. Clio does not manage your multi-factor authentication. The gap between what Clio secures and what you need to secure is where incidents happen.
Legacy PCLaw servers aging without a migration plan
PCLaw runs on local servers that are getting older every year. The hardware warranties have expired, the operating system may be approaching end of life, and the firm has been deferring the migration conversation because it feels expensive and disruptive. Meanwhile, the server holds years of trust account records, billing data, and client files. Deferral is not a strategy. It is an escalating risk.
Cyber insurance requirements tightening every renewal
Your insurer is asking more questions with each renewal cycle. Do you have MFA on all remote access? Do you run endpoint detection and response? Do you test your backups? Do you have an incident response plan? Each "no" either increases your premium or narrows your coverage. Some firms are discovering at renewal time that they cannot get coverage at all without specific technical controls in place.
Regulatory inquiry risk from inadequate records
If the Law Society investigates a complaint and asks for records you cannot produce because your backup failed, or if a court orders production of documents stored in a system you can no longer access because the server died, the consequences are professional and personal. The technology behind records management is not an administrative detail. It is a practice risk.
Legal practice management software we support
We support the platforms BC law firms actually run. Whether you are on Clio and fully cloud-based or still operating PCLaw on a local server, we understand the infrastructure each platform requires and the gaps each one leaves for you to manage.
ClioPrimary
The dominant practice management platform for small-to-mid BC law firms. Cloud-hosted, which means Clio handles application availability while we handle everything local: workstation security, network reliability, browser configuration, printing, scanning, and the endpoint controls that Clio assumes you have in place. We also support Clio integrations with document management, accounting, and communication tools.
PCLaw
Legacy server-based practice management still running in many established BC firms. We manage the server infrastructure, SQL database health, trust accounting module reliability, and the network environment PCLaw requires. When the migration conversation is ready, we plan and execute the transition to Clio or another platform with data integrity verification at every step.
NetDocuments
Cloud document management built for law firms with specific security and compliance requirements. We manage the endpoint configuration, ndOffice integration, email filing rules, and the network conditions that determine whether NetDocuments performs well or frustrates your lawyers with sync delays and upload failures.
iManage
Enterprise document and email management used by mid-size and larger firms. We support the server or cloud infrastructure, Work desktop client deployment, Outlook integration, and the access control model that maps to your firm structure. When iManage updates its client or changes integration requirements, we handle the rollout.
Microsoft 365
Email, calendaring, SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive form the collaboration backbone for most firms. We manage the tenant security configuration, conditional access policies, data loss prevention rules, email encryption, and the compliance settings that law firms need but rarely configure correctly out of the box.
Professional and regulatory compliance for BC law firms
Law firms operate under overlapping obligations: provincial privacy law, federal privacy law, Law Society professional conduct rules, and increasingly, cyber insurance requirements. The technology infrastructure must satisfy all of them simultaneously.
Law Society of BC — Code of Professional Conduct
Rule 3.3 requires lawyers to maintain client confidentiality. This obligation extends to technology: encrypted storage, controlled access, secure communication channels, and documented procedures for handling confidential information electronically. When the Law Society audits your practice or investigates a complaint, the technical controls you have in place — or do not have in place — are part of the record. We help you build and document the infrastructure that meets these professional obligations.
PIPA (Personal Information Protection Act)
BC privacy law governs your collection, use, and disclosure of personal information about clients and staff. Law firms hold particularly sensitive personal information: financial records, health information in personal injury matters, family details in custody cases, criminal history. PIPA requires reasonable security safeguards proportionate to this sensitivity. We implement and document the technical controls that make your compliance demonstrable.
Cyber Insurance Technical Requirements
Insurers are increasingly mandating specific technical controls as conditions of coverage: multi-factor authentication on all remote access, endpoint detection and response, tested backup and recovery procedures, security awareness training, and documented incident response plans. We implement these controls and provide the documentation your insurer requires at each renewal cycle. Gaps in technical controls are gaps in your coverage.
Court and Tribunal Electronic Filing Standards
BC courts require electronic filing in specific formats with specific security handling for sealed or confidential documents. Your technology must support compliant filing workflows without exposing privileged material through insecure transmission. We ensure your systems meet these requirements and that staff can file confidently.
What Nexanova does for law firms
What the software vendor handles vs. what we handle
- Clio / PCLaw application development, bugs, and feature releases
- NetDocuments / iManage cloud platform availability and application security
- Microsoft 365 global infrastructure and service availability
- Practice management software licensing and subscription billing
- Application-level training and workflow configuration support
- Workstation deployment, patching, encryption, and endpoint detection and response
- Network architecture, segmentation, firewall rules, and VPN / zero-trust access
- User account management, MFA enforcement, role-based access, and deprovisioning
- Backup configuration, monthly restore verification, and retention policy alignment
- Microsoft 365 tenant security: conditional access, DLP rules, email encryption
- Cyber insurance technical control implementation and renewal documentation
- PCLaw server infrastructure and cloud migration planning
- Cybersecurity monitoring, threat detection, incident response, and breach coordination
AI tools that respect solicitor-client privilege
AI in a law firm must navigate the privilege boundary. Some tasks can use cloud AI safely. Others require local processing to maintain confidentiality. We help you deploy AI tools that match the sensitivity of the work rather than applying a single approach to everything.
Claude Cowork for lawyers
AI-assisted drafting for correspondence, memoranda, contract review summaries, and research digests. Claude Cowork operates within defined boundaries, and we configure the deployment to align with your firm data handling policies. For general administrative and business development tasks, cloud AI is appropriate and efficient.
Local AI with Ollama for privilege-sensitive work
For queries involving privileged client information, we deploy Ollama running local language models on your firm infrastructure. No client data leaves your network. The AI processes information entirely on-premise, and you maintain full control over the data at every step. This is how you get AI capability without compromising privilege.
Clio MCP integration for practice intelligence
AI connected to your Clio data through the Model Context Protocol for matter summaries, deadline tracking, billing analysis, and client communication history. The integration pulls from your existing practice data to surface insights that would take manual review to compile. Configured with access controls that match your Clio permissions structure.
Document intake and processing automation
AI-powered document classification, OCR, and metadata extraction for incoming files. Client documents are categorized, tagged, and routed to the correct matter automatically. The intake workflow reduces administrative overhead and ensures nothing gets misfiled or lost between reception and the responsible lawyer.
Client intake automation
AI-assisted intake forms that collect initial client information, perform conflict checks against your existing records, and route qualified inquiries to the appropriate practice area. Your receptionist and intake staff handle fewer routine data collection tasks and focus on the interactions that require human judgment.
Frequently Asked Questions
We evaluate each service against the privilege requirements of the work it touches. General firm administration and business development can use cloud AI and cloud services safely. Work involving privileged client information uses either encrypted cloud services with appropriate contractual protections or local processing with Ollama where no data leaves your network. We help you draw that line clearly and enforce it technically.
Take your average billable rate, multiply by the number of timekeepers affected, and multiply by the hours of downtime. A firm with ten lawyers averaging $300 per hour loses $3,000 for every hour of downtime. That is before you account for missed deadlines, client dissatisfaction, and the administrative overhead of rescheduling work. The cost of reliable managed IT is a fraction of the cost of a single significant outage.
Yes. We implement the specific technical controls insurers require: MFA on all remote access, endpoint detection and response, verified backups, incident response documentation, and security awareness training coordination. We also provide the documentation and attestation your insurer asks for at renewal. Most firms find that proper technical controls reduce their premium while expanding their coverage.
Yes. We plan and execute PCLaw-to-Clio migrations with full data integrity verification. The process includes parallel running periods where both systems operate simultaneously, matter-by-matter data validation, trust accounting reconciliation, and a staged cutover that does not disrupt active files. We have done this before and we know where the data mapping problems occur.
Most small-to-mid BC law firms fall in the $800 to $2,500 per month range depending on the number of users, the complexity of the software environment, and whether you have on-premise servers or are fully cloud-based. Firms with PCLaw servers, NetDocuments or iManage, and multiple office locations are at the higher end. We scope based on actual infrastructure and requirements, not a generic per-user multiplier.
Your clients trust you with their most sensitive matters. Trust us with the technology behind them.
Or call (604) 613-0150