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Onboarding and offboarding at a law firm
A clerk left a month ago, and can still sign in to one tool
Law firms have a lot of coming and going: clerks, students, assistants, locums and lawyers. Each person ends up with access in a dozen places, and one of them gets forgotten.
Ask Tony for a free 30-minute insurer readiness review.
What you can count on
- Intuneso a lost or unreturned device can be wiped
- BitLockerfull-disk encryption managed through Intune
- 24/7a person answers (604) 813-7881
What happens
Illustrative, not a client story. This is a made-up sketch, built from public guidance. It is not about a Benson Hunt client.
A clerk finishes on a Friday. The firm turns off her email the following week. Weeks later, she can still sign in to a practice tool through a saved password, and a shared mailbox is still forwarding to her personal address.
At the other end, a new student starts on Monday and spends the first morning waiting: no laptop ready, no multi-factor sign-in set up, no access to the document system. Someone lends a login “just for today”, and it stays lent.
Nobody is careless here. The firm simply has no single list of every place a person needs to be added or removed.
The public sources behind this sketch
- ALIA’s cyber guidance recommends switching off ex-employee access immediately. ALIA cyber program
- LAWPRO’s PracticePRO publishes an employee departure checklist for law firms. It is an older Ontario document, so treat it as an example of the idea. Departure checklist
- The Law Society of Alberta lists individual logins among the questions to ask a software vendor, which matters most when people leave. Software considerations
Day one
Ready before the first morning.
Last day
Off at the agreed time, with nothing forgotten.
Why it happens
In plain words, and with nobody to blame.
Access lives in many places
Email, the document system, practice and trust accounting software, banking portals, the VPN, the phone system, e-signature, client portals and shared mailboxes. Each has its own list of users.
Nobody owns the list
Without one written list, whoever does the removal relies on memory, and memory misses the tool used twice a year.
Shared logins blur who is who
A shared login is hard to turn off without locking out everyone else, so it tends to stay. The Law Society of Alberta lists individual logins among the things to ask a software vendor about.
What fixes it
A calm checklist beats heroics. The same steps, in the same order, every time.
- A written starter and leaver checklist. It is built around a list of every system your firm uses, and we can help you build it. It covers what your firm tells us it uses. We do not promise to connect to every legal product, but each one goes on the list.
- One sign-in where possible. Turning off a person’s account on the firm’s sign-in server (the domain controller) cuts off the computers and server software tied to it at once. Cloud tools can have their own accounts, so they go on the checklist.
- Multi-factor sign-in from day one. It is set up with the new laptop, not weeks later.
- Encrypted laptops, collected on the last day. With Microsoft 365 Business Premium, our standard for law firms under 300 users, laptops get BitLocker full-disk encryption managed through Intune, so a laptop that goes astray is a smaller worry. A phone or laptop that is not returned can be wiped through Intune.
- Individual accounts, with software on its own app server. Hyper-V keeps the sign-in server and the app server apart, and each person has their own login. Hyper-V for law firms
- Awareness training from the first week. Short quizzes and a monthly report card. How our training works
Questions we help you answer
Ask us which of these matter most for your firm.
- Can you name every system a new lawyer needs on day one, and every one that should be removed on the last?
- How quickly can access be switched off, and who says when?
- Do personal phones hold client email? If one leaves with an employee, can it be wiped? Microsoft Intune comes with Business Premium, our standard for law firms, so it can be.
- Who receives a departing person’s mailbox, files and phone number?
- Do temporary staff and locums get their own accounts, with an end date?
This is IT guidance, not legal advice. Questions about files, privilege and client information when someone leaves are for your firm’s own lawyer.
Why it matters, in plain words
The tech behind this page, and why it’s there. See all the plain guides.
Multi-factor sign in
Why a stolen password shouldn’t open a lawyer’s inbox
Passwords leak. A second check on a phone or a security key stops most stolen passwords from working.
DNS filtering
Why a bad link can fail before the page loads
Every web visit starts with a lookup. Known bad sites are blocked right there, in the office and on laptops.
Immutable backups
Why ransomware goes after the firm’s backups first
Without backups, the firm has to pay or rebuild. Our copies are locked for 30 days, and no one, not even us, can delete them early.
Onboarding and offboarding questions we hear
How long does it take to set up a new person?
It depends on the hardware and the software licences. Our aim is to have the laptop, sign-in, multi-factor sign-in and access ready before the first morning, which works best when we hear about start dates early.
Who decides when access is switched off?
The firm does. Tell us the date and time. For sensitive departures, tell us before the conversation happens, so the timing can match.
Can you remove access to our cloud tools too?
We cover what is on the checklist. Cloud legal tools each have their own accounts, so we ask which ones you use and add each to the list. We do not promise to connect to every legal product.
What about locums and students?
They follow the same checklist, ideally with an end date agreed at the start. Tell us who is coming and when.