Intelligent Control for the Legal Profession

The legal industry is evolving. Firms have become global, with multinational clients and offices around the world. Information technology is now a key factor in a firms success. Lawyers depend on their network for client communications, access to case information, to collaborate with colleagues, and to account for their time. The profession generates a tremendous amount of digital data in the form of contracts, court filings, exhibits, briefs, and traditional office activity such as e-mail. In today’s competitive environment, law firms cannot afford to have their LAN compromised, impacting key engagements.

To get the most out of each attorney’s billable hours, IT must deliver intelligent control of users and applications that is effective but transparent so that it does not affect the firm's daily operations.

Law firms must evaluate solutions that will provide them with complete control. The chosen product should be simple to use, manage, and deploy. In addition to a product that is scalable and cost-effective, law firms should focus on a holistic solution.

Key features of Intelligent Control of users and applications

• complete Network Admission Control (NAC) - user authentication, role derivation, and host posture assessment to ensure only valid users and devices enter the LAN
• improved application performance - Layer 7 identification, prioritization, and treatment of applications to protect assets and put business needs first
• complete user control - identity- and role-based policies to control access to applications and other resources
• faster troubleshooting - username, device, application, and resource tied together to accelerate incident response
• simplified compliance and audit trail - full documentation of all policies, as well as all LAN activities, tied to username and resource to speed audits

Key projects ConSentry can help address

• Allow attorney and guest access to the Internet without scanning guest’s laptop to avoid the ramifications of scanning the laptop of an opposition lawyer
• Ensure only compliant devices get on the non-quarantined LAN, with host posture check
• Provide differentiated LAN access for partners vs. associates vs. other law firm personnel
• Enable shared-use of networked PCs while ensuring that staff can access only the legal data appropriate to their role
• Deploy Network Admission Control (NAC) without a switch upgrade