Law firms are prime targets of cyber attacks due to the abundance of sensitive client data they handle, including financial records, intellectual property, and other confidential information.

Cybersecurity threats, especially extortion and business email compromise (e.g., phishing), are increasing in sophistication, frequency and severity, leaving law practices of all sizes vulnerable to the financial and reputational impacts of cyber breaches.

As a uniquely vulnerable class of business, it is critical for law firms to protect themselves. By implementing a strategic risk transfer program and adopting robust cybersecurity practices, firms can safeguard their businesses and mitigate the wide-reaching impacts of a cyber breach.

Cyber insurance offers critical protection against financial loss and serves as an invaluable breach response resource, providing incident response services and covering expenses and liabilities such as ransom payments, lost revenue, and the legal fees and settlements for lawsuits that arise from a breach.

ProQuest advises law firms of all sizes on their cyber risk. Our dedicated cyber practice is uniquely committed to creating bespoke, best-in-class consulting services and risk transfer products that are tailored to meet the unique needs of the legal profession.

Our insurance platform has access to roughly $200M in cyber limits from more than 50 insurers active in the law firm marketplace. We will guide your firm in structuring a cyber insurance program that includes the following coverages:

• Extortion/ Ransomware
• Breach Responses Services (Outside Counsel, Forensics, Public Relations)
• Notification Costs
• Data Restoration
• Loss of Income
• Regulatory Fines & Penalties
• Liability Defense & Settlement
• Multimedia Liability Exposure

ProQuest’s robust consulting services compliment the risk transfer program and can enhance your firm’s cyber security posture ahead of renewal or off-cycle. Our offerings include:

• Risk Quantification and Loss Modeling
• Insurability Studies
• Incident Response Readiness (e.g., Tabletop Exercises, IR Planning)
• CISO On-Demand
• Technical Security Solutions (e.g., EDR, MDR, MSSP)

Because your employees are your biggest investment—and are central to your firm’s success—a benefits program is one critical way to support your employees. The key question is whether your benefits program aligns with the specific needs of your organization. ProQuest understands that law firms are different from most employers because of tax, cultural, income diversity, and employment tenure factors. This uniqueness requires expert guidance in employee benefit planning, analysis, purchasing, and ongoing management.

To deliver a full range of benefit programs and strategies that fit the special needs of our clients, ProQuest uses the services of an Alliant employee benefits team that has a long history of specializing in law firms.

This specialized benefits team has developed an industry-leading practice that supports the health and welfare benefit needs of medium- and large-size law firms. Its extensive experience in working with some of the country’s leading law firms has enabled it to deliver analysis and solutions that take into account all of the following factors that are unique to law firms:

• Plan designs must address the unique tax implications of partnerships.
  The hierarchical nature of law firms requires efficient use of permissible discrimination within benefits plans.
• Law firms’ acute sensitivity to the decisions of industry peers requires real-time access to emerging trends.
• Significant variations in employee compensation within staff-level job classifications require creative solutions to employee contribution challenges.
• Partner tenure, income, and investment acumen create opportunities for deployment of more sophisticated health, death, and disability solutions.
• Insurance providers tend to shy away from law firms, narrowing the field of potential vendors and increasing the importance of developing long-term partnerships.
• Specialized Services for Law Firms

The Alliant law firm benefits team provides the following services:

• Health savings account analysis for partners
• Law firm benchmarking surveys and analysis
• Employee contribution modeling
• Law firm-focused financial analysis
• Specialty life and disability insurance solutions
• Communications geared for law firms

Visit Alliant Employee Benefits for more information about how our consultants can develop a benefits strategy tailored to your firm.

The unique unique exposures law firms encounter set them apart from other organizations when it comes to EPL insurance. EPL claim exposures can be driven by actions such as mergers, downsizing, failure to make partner or receive promotions and workforce diversity issues. ProQuest's experienced team offers decades of expertise in tailoring the ideal insurance structure to meet your firms coverage needs and policy considerations for EPL insurance.

To protect against potential financial disaster and damage to your firm’s reputation, EPL insurance is readily available with competitive terms and conditions. EPL insurance can provide financial support for legal defense costs and potential settlements, shielding the firm's reputation, assets, and overall financial stability in the event of such claims.

As recent high-profile cases have shown, the modern corporate management structure can expose law firm partners and shareholders to many of the same liability risks faced by directors and officers, requiring firms to secure insurance coverage for decisions made by management.

Only a minority of director and officer claims against public companies are derived from shareholders, while a majority of claims emanate from entities with no ownership interest in the company. Many well-regarded firms once considered financially strong are now struggling and unable to honor their indemnification requirements.

ProQuest tailors management liability insurance programs for professional partnership structures designed to provide financial protection to law firm partnerships and their executive management committee members.

• Limits of Liability of more than $20 million
• Varying deductible options starting at $50,000
• Broad form coverage provisions
• Choice of counsel
• Coverage for partnership disputes
• Defense for criminal and regulatory proceedings
• Choice of insured individuals

We also offer primary and excess “Side A” with Difference in Conditions (“DIC”) policies. “Side A” only policies include coverage for the individual insured’sliability when they are not indemnified by the firm (typically with a $0 deductible). Typical insured persons include members of an executive/management committee and senior officers at the firm.

“Side A” coverage may trigger if the firm becomes financially insolvent or if the firm cannot or refuses to indemnify the individual, directors, officers, and members.

To protect against the range of premises- and operations-related exposures inherent in the operation of a law firm, ProQuest has created an integrated property and casualty insurance portfolio (IIP) to address these unique risks.

After a thorough review of your existing policies, the ProQuest team will assist you in selecting the most appropriate coverage for your firm and will approach leading insurers on your behalf. Your IIP provides an individualized property and casualty insurance program through a streamlined process. This collaborative process will result in a customized program to address the unique exposures of your firm’s offices.

In addition, through our access to the resources of Alliant, we can introduce risk control management consultants who are experts in identifying and mitigating a myriad of work-related exposures that can result in costly losses.

The property and casualty insurance resources of ProQuest include:

• Liability
• Workers’ compensation
• Travel
• Fiduciary
• Fidelity
• Excess liability/umbrella
• Property

ProQuest provides specialized risk and practice management consulting services through a team of professionals comprised of in-house advocates and an independent network of expert loss prevention attorneys.

Our multi-pronged approach is unique for services not provided by in-house ProQuest professionals. For qualifying firms, ProQuest has the capability to work with your insurers to develop a dedicated risk management fund (at no expense to you) that will finance the services. Engagement letters are executed between the outside specialist and your firm for each contracted program/service, a process that shields the engagement under attorney-client privilege.

The services provided are offered in a menu-based format, allowing you to choose only those components appropriate to your loss control needs and integrate them into a customized series of interactive seminars, workshops, and audits.

The range of risk management services and programs offered through ProQuest include:

• Risk management hotline
• Firm leadership and management structure
• Basics of a risk management plan
• Client intake
• Human resources management
• Docket and calendar management
• Best practices in detecting and responding to client fraud
• Client and firm finance management
• Conflict management and avoidance
• Associate training
• Ethics
• Creation and management of subsidiary/ancillary practices
• Planning and conducting partner retreats
• Creation and review of firm procedure manuals
• Disaster recovery and business continuity planning
• Conflict and waiver letters
• Billings and collection
• Practice group management
• Firm mergers and acquisitions
• Managing electronic data