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Online Storage For Lawyers?

Posted by timothy on from the due-diligence-best-practices dept.

alharaka writes "I have a relative that has been a lawyer for over two decades. In passing conversation, he revealed to me that he has a great deal of his data stored on floppies. Naturally, as an IT guy, I lost it on him, telling him that a one-dimensional storage strategy of floppies was unacceptable. If he lost those files, his clients would be enraged. Since I do not know much about online data storage for lawyers, I read a few articles I found on Google. A lot of people appear to recommend CoreVault, since a few bar associations, including Oklahoma, officially endorsed them. That is not enough for me. Do any Slashdotters have info on this topic? Do you have any companies you would recommend for online data storage specifically for lawyers? My relative is a lawyer with recognition in NJ, NY, CA, and DC; are there any rules and regulations you know of regarding such online storage he must comply with? I know IT and not law. I am aware this is not a forum for legal advice, but do any IT professionals who work for law firms know about such rules and regulations?"

3 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Why online? by captaindomon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why online storage? Why not just copy everything to a couple USB drives and then backup off-site occasionally with DVDs? It's not like we're talking about a lot of storage, they're probably just text documents mostly, right?

    --
    Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
    1. Re:Why online? by brtech · · Score: 4, Interesting

      One good story deserves another, from several years ago

      There was this medical device manufacturer. It had an older product, pre-microprocessor. One day, the FDA came for an inspection. When they do that, they usually send at least one person with clue, but they cross train other people and send them too. On this inspection, one of the inspector's regular job was inspecting galleys in ships (another FDA function you may not know about). This guy had been cross trained.

      So, they are walking down the manufacturing line, and the employee shows them the board from the product. One of the chips has a label on on. The inspector says "PROM"? Meaning, is that chip a programmable read only memory (like today's flash, but usually one time programmable and a lot smaller). The employee says "Yes, that's a PROM". The inspector says "Checksum?" and the employee says "yes, the checksum is on the label". The inspector says "Verify?" and the employee takes the board, pulls the chip, goes over to the programmer, plugs it in and verifies that the checksum is valid.

      The inspector says "Source Code?". The employee is a bit stumped. He goes away to ask some engineers who were around for a while, then goes to the manufacturing engineering guys and finally goes back to the inspector and asks them to accompany him to a storage room.

      In the storage room, there are a number of 4 drawer file cabinets. The employee searches around, and finally finds the right file.

      The file has the right build data on the cover. He opens the file and triumphantly removes the floppy disk with the source code on it.

      An 8" floppy disk.

      You know what's coming right?








      No 8" drive left in the company.

  2. Re:A Few Helpful Lists by quantumplacet · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You do know that you can back up to a 3rd party and still maintain sole access to the data, correct? All of our backups are encrypted using a 448bit key that only we have access to. If our backup provider is subpoenaed they can give all my data to whoever they want, it's just a meaningless binary blob.