For senior partners, IT ignorance is risk

Senior partners are legally responsible for data security. That means your reputation suffers, you pay a fine or you go to court when the people you pay mess up your data security.

That may not feel fair. You pay people who have the time and expertise to do it, and yet you are the one who is accountable?

To help you, over the next few posts, we’ll be giving you a crash course in what you should know. It won’t take long and it won’t be technical. You won’t need to know, or care about, the difference between a zettabyte and a yottabyte.

We will give you the right questions to ask, so you get simple, easy to understand reports from those responsible. Wouldn’t it be hugely reassuring to have proof someone else is worrying about data security so you don’t have to?

I recommend you print these posts and take them to your next partner meeting. These are the insights that boards need to verify their trust is well placed in their current data security measures.

The crash course starts with our next post. The topic is dull but critical – backup. We’ll make it simple and interesting for you by covering:

• Why you should never, ever ask “is our backup ok?” We’ll tell you what you should ask, and why.
• The two key standards you have to set. Backup bores you and you are far too busy already, nonetheless only you should set these standards.

Backup is the right place for you to start. You can be bad in all other security areas but a good backup means you can recover. Poorly designed backups lead to these:

• Fee-earners sitting idle, unable to work
• Fee-earners re-doing work you can’t charge for
• Missing deadlines
• Having to tell clients you have lost data
• Falling foul of the law
• The business going bust

So it’s worth the right amount of your time, effort and understanding.