♫ What makes you think that you are invincible
I can see it in your eyes that you’re so sure
please don’t tell me that I am the only one that’s vulnerable
impossible…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by John Vesely, under the pseudonym Secondhand Serenade.

The State Bar of Arizona has issued one of the first Ethics Opinions on preserving client confidentiality when placing client documents for access over the Internet. Arizona stated:

“Lawyers providing an online file storage and retrieval system for client access of documents must take reasonable precautions to protect the security and confidentiality of client documents and information.”

What is interesting in the Opinion is not the fact that the electronic storage of client files was permitted as long as lawyers and law firms “take competent and reasonable steps to assure that the client’s confidences are not disclosed to third parties through theft or inadvertence” or that ‘reasonable precautions’ was the standard that was set forth; but rather that the ethics opinion specifically approved the manner in which the remote access could occur:

The rest of this post can be found on slaw.ca.