From: Inside Counsel
Corporate clients that fail to ensure the security of their law firms put their corporate data at risk
By Wayne Matus, Brandon Daniels
The names Heartbleed, Snowden, Target and Neiman Marcus have recently grabbed headlines, but if you are in the legal industry, it is Mayer Brown that should have grabbed your attention. In February, a top-secret document revealed by Edward J. Snowden showed that Mayer Brown’s communications with its client the Indonesian government had been intercepted by an Australian intelligence agency and given to the U.S. National Security Agency. The circumstances indicate that Mayer Brown was not inadvertently hacked; it was targeted — even though it was well-known that “information covered by attorney-client privilege may be included.” Why? Because the Indonesian government was in trade negotiations and the information was “highly useful intelligence for interested US customers.”
As noted in the New York Times:
“Duane Layton, a Mayer Brown lawyer involved in the trade talks, said he did not have any evidence that he or his firm had been under scrutiny by Australian or American intelligence agencies. ‘I always wonder if someone is listening, because you would have to be an idiot not to wonder in this day and age,’ he said in an interview. ‘But I’ve never really thought I was being spied on.’”
You probably have wondered on a few of your matters too. But wondering is no longer enough, because in 2012 the American Bar Association amended Client-Lawyer Relationship Rule 1.6 by adding specific language that:
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