Law firms hold some of the most sensitive files any small business keeps, and they share them with more outside parties than most: auditors, other firms, clients and courts. That shapes almost every IT job they need.
Between 19 August 2025 and 18 August 2026, five legal practices we support raised 73 tickets with us, including replies, and we logged 34.4 hours of work for them. This is what that work looked like, without names, places or incident details.
Giving outside parties the right access, and no more
A recurring job was access for people outside the firm. One practice needed access set up for an auditor. Another needed an outside party given access to the files for one particular matter, and that access was checked and adjusted several times through the year.
It’s easy to share a whole drive and move on. It’s harder, and right, to share only what’s needed and take it away when the job’s done.
Practice software that has to talk to everything
Practice management software came up across the year: a planning meeting at one firm, a connection problem, an installation, a check before someone travelled that the software and a secure remote connection would both work away from the office, and a calendar that wouldn’t sync with Outlook.
When a firm’s matters, time recording and calendar all live in one system, a sync problem isn’t cosmetic. A calendar entry that never arrives can mean a missed appointment.
Files, storage and email that fills up
OneDrive caused its share of work: sync problems, then a longer conversation about how one firm used it. Staff asked for files back from a recycle bin, marked time sensitive, and for help recovering a spreadsheet. Two tickets at one firm were warnings that an archive mailbox was almost full.
Law firms keep email for a long time, so mailbox limits come up more often than in most businesses. It’s worth knowing where your limit is before Outlook tells you.
Internet faults that needed someone on site
Twice in the year, one practice lost its internet badly enough to need a site visit, including once when restarting the modem and router didn’t bring it back.
The rest was everyday work: new staff profiles, a new laptop, monitors that flickered, and a screen display set too large.
Why SMB1001 comes up for law firms
The Queensland Law Society has published guidance on the SMB1001 cyber security standard. Its page says law firms have an ethical duty to take “reasonable steps” to protect the confidentiality of client information, and that it recommends members work towards achieving Gold certification as a reasonable standard.
That gives a practice a clear target rather than a vague instruction to be secure. Bastion IT is SMB1001 Gold certified, so we’ve been through the same process ourselves.
Where to start
If you run a practice, ask three questions. Who outside the firm has access to your files right now? When did someone last check that your practice software syncs properly with Outlook? And where does your firm sit against SMB1001?
If you’d like to talk through SMB1001 for your practice, get in touch.