Counself Risk
Manage Outside Counsel, Mitigate Risk, Comply Faster

The legal industry has been flourishing as enterprises are expanding and going after new opportunities, but closely following this growth is a determined regulatory focus on legal vendor and third-party risks. Legal Ops teams are finding themselves held to strict obligations of assessing and maintaining law firm compliance while under management’s expectation of streamlining their processes. Newport Beach, CA based company InfiniGlobe has built Counself Risk™, an industry-specific tool, which enables Legal Ops teams to manage their legal vendors and mitigate risks with convenience.

In an interview with CIO Applications, Mori Kabiri, CEO of InfiniGlobe and founder of Counself platform, explains how the company’s innovative platform helps reduce Legal Ops workload by streamlining the vendor due diligence monitoring process.

Tell us about the “Data Breach” problem.

Let me give you an example any company could relate to. Back in 2013, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel was fired after a successful cyber-attack and customer data breach. His termination sent shockwaves through every boardroom and law office, one of the most significant incidents in c-suite history as this new precedent triggered a tectonic shift: an executive could be held liable for a company’s cyber safety.

Here’s the thing though, it happened as a contractor was installing a new air conditioning system. While he had access to the internal network, he mistakenly downloaded a phishing email that permitted a bot to infiltrate, install malware, and collect Target’s customers names, addresses, and all credit card information. An unintentional mistake impacted 41 million customers, resulted in an $18.5 million settlement, and career executives losing their jobs. It took years for Target to recover from this security violation and overwhelming loss of public trust.

As FBI director Robert Mueller said: “I am convinced that there are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be. And eventhey are converging into one category: companies that have been hacked and will be hacked again.”

How about the cyber security in the legal industry?

Law firm and legal service providers work with sensitive client data and most of them are not equipped with the level of information security measures that are required to protect them from hackers. Law firms in particular are one-stop shop for hackers, not only because of the value of the data they work with, but because they may be more willing to pay extortionists off if they fall victim to ransomware.

Hackers persistently target law firms hoping to access client information, including trade secrets, busi-ness plans, and personal data. According to the ABA’s 2018 Legal Technology Survey Report, 23 percent of law firms reported experiencing a cyber-attack, more than 50 percent from the previous year.

As a result, regulatory bodies are increasing their focus on law firms risks, and compliance is becoming more demanding, complicated, and time-consuming. In some enterprise-level companies it can take weeks if not months for the procurement team to onboard a new or assess an existing law firm.

Can you elaborate on the salient features of Counself Risk?

These growing law firm security threats and the corresponding lagging vendor onboarding process are why Counself Risk was created. It provides a convenient, secure, and compliant solution to swiftly integrate legal vendors, cutting onboarding time by half.

As your company grows and expands, so will your panel law firms and vendors. Counself Risk is built and tested specifically for the legal industry, with ready-to-use questionnaires and forms which accelerate diligent onboarding and monitoring.

Can you share a case study where you helped a client solve their challenges related to vendor man-agement?

A large US bank wanted a solution to streamline and speed up their law firms onboarding and monitor-ing process. Using Counself Risk, their Legal Ops team was able to cut the time it had taken them to communicate, collaborate, collect, and organize documents from vendors by 50 percent. Both the client team and their various law firms’ teams have secure, centralized access to the information and documentations in one compliance hub, saving them tons of time searching through emails, shared folders, and excel files. Plus, our professional services team helped them integrate their Matter Management System to Counself platform using its open API, eliminating double data entries between the systems, and enabling intelligent, actionable reporting.

What lies ahead for Counself?

Counself is a B2B platform, connecting enterprises and their legal partners. As we listen to our clients’ needs, like Counself Risk, we are building new modules for facilitate collaborations between Legal Ops and Law Firms, such as specialized RFPs and Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFA). Using the Counself platform, clients can view and manage their relationships with Law Firms and from the other side, with simple and secure collaboration features, Law Firms can provide more efficient services at greater value, taking advantage of new opportunities. Information privacy and security is very important to us, so we’ve built the Counself platform from the ground up by an ISO/IEC 27001 certified team and host it in a highly secure cloud.

A new air conditioner cost Target over $18 million and the CEO his job. Now that you know why you're a target, let’s work together to get that target off your back. Counself Risk can help you quickly and securely onboard your legal vendors.