Legal Document Security & Compliance

Every October, Cybersecurity Awareness Month puts an important spotlight on the ways organizations can better protect their systems, users, and data.

For law firms, that conversation has particularly high stakes. Legal professionals work every day with confidential client communications, contracts, financial records, case files, personally identifiable information, and other sensitive documents.

Protecting that information requires more than securing the place where documents are ultimately stored.

Firms also need to think about what happens to those documents along the way.

That means looking at the applications employees use, the steps required to move files between those applications, where temporary copies are created, and whether sensitive documents ever leave the firm’s established document management workflow unnecessarily.

For firms using NetDocuments, One Step Save helps close those workflow gaps while keeping security at the center of the process.

Your DMS May Be Secure. What Happens Between Applications?

A document management system provides firms with a centralized environment for organizing, managing, and controlling access to important information.

The challenge begins when users need to work with an application that does not traditionally integrate with that environment.

Imagine a user downloads a document from an application to their desktop, works with the file locally, and then manually uploads it into NetDocuments.

The document ultimately reaches the correct destination, but consider everything that happened in between.

Was a copy left in the Downloads folder? Is another sitting on the desktop? Did the user upload the correct version? Was the file temporarily placed somewhere outside the firm’s normal document management process?

These are not necessarily sophisticated cybersecurity attacks. They are everyday workflow issues.

And that’s precisely why they matter.

Manual Document Handling Can Create Unnecessary Risk

The more times users have to download, save, move, locate, and re-upload sensitive information, the more opportunities there are for mistakes.

A file can be misplaced. A local copy can be forgotten. The wrong version can be uploaded. Documents can remain outside the centralized system longer than intended.

One Step Save was designed to eliminate many of these unnecessary steps.

Instead of forcing users to manually move files between unsupported applications and NetDocuments, One Step Save extends NetDocuments functionality into the applications firms already rely on.

Today, that includes workflows involving PDF applications, browsers, word-processing tools, email, scanning, AI applications, practice management tools, and more. 

The result isn’t simply a faster workflow.

It can also mean  less unnecessary document handling.

Security Is Built Into the One Step Save Model

For firms evaluating any technology that interacts with sensitive documents, one of the first questions should be simple:

What access does this technology have to our information?

One Step Save was built around a zero-knowledge security model.

Users access One Step Save by authenticating through NetDocuments with their existing NetDocuments credentials. One Step Save does not see, know, or store the user’s NetDocuments password. 

Just as importantly, One Step Save does not store users’ files.

Instead, One Step Save leverages ndOffice by NetDocuments for secure access and document transfer. Access to those documents continues to be controlled by the permissions established by the organization’s NetDocuments repository administrator. 

That distinction is important.

One Step Save isn’t designed to become another repository where firms need to duplicate documents, recreate permissions, or manage an additional collection of sensitive information.

It extends the workflow while allowing NetDocuments to remain at its center.

Keep NetDocuments at the Center of the Workflow

One of the strongest ways to support document security is to make the appropriate workflow the easiest workflow for employees to follow.

If getting a document into the correct NetDocuments workspace requires multiple downloads, folders, uploads, and workarounds, users have more opportunities to unintentionally create copies or leave information outside the firm’s controlled document environment.

One Step Save reduces that friction.

For example, users can save web-based legal research from supported browsers directly into NetDocuments. Scanned contracts and client paperwork can move from supported ScanSnap workflows into NetDocuments without the traditional manual file transfer. Supported PDF applications can open and save documents through NetDocuments workflows. One Step Save can even bridge NetDocuments with supported AI applications, reducing the need for users to manually download files before working with them. 

Different applications. Different use cases.

But the goal remains consistent: keep the firm’s documents connected to the document management environment designed to manage them.

Security and Productivity Should Work Together

Cybersecurity conversations sometimes create the impression that security and convenience are competing priorities.

In practice, they shouldn’t have to be.

The more complicated a secure process becomes, the more likely users are to look for a faster workaround.

Good workflow design can help eliminate that problem by making the secure process the natural process.

One Step Save runs in the background once configured, allowing users to continue working with familiar open and save processes while connecting those actions with NetDocuments. 

That means firms don’t necessarily have to choose between supporting the applications their professionals prefer and maintaining a structured document management strategy.

They can do both.

Make Document Workflow Security Part of the Conversation This October

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a useful reminder to review passwords, authentication, phishing awareness, software updates, and other fundamental security practices. CISA continues to emphasize these kinds of everyday actions as important components of organizational cybersecurity. 

For law firms, it is also an opportunity to ask another question:

How do our documents actually move throughout the workday?

Look at what happens between the moment a document enters an application and the moment it reaches NetDocuments. Identify unnecessary downloads, temporary local storage, duplicate copies, and manual uploads.

Those small workflow gaps can be easy to overlook.

Closing them can make document management simpler while supporting the security and compliance practices your firm has already worked hard to establish.

This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, take a closer look at the steps between your applications and NetDocuments. One Step Save can help you close the gaps.

👉 Visit https://onestepsave.com to learn more or schedule a demo today.