Assess the actual custody arrangement

A law firm may hold confidential records and recovery instructions. Ask about its actual controls rather than assuming the firm is secure or insecure because of its size. Legal expertise and technical custody are separate capabilities.

Why? Because lawyers store the most sensitive information imaginable — M&A details, patent filings, litigation strategy, and increasingly, digital credentials and passwords.

Agree on an access and continuity process with the firm, including who can obtain copies and how changes in personnel are handled.

Agree on an access and continuity process with the firm, including who can obtain copies and how changes in personnel are handled.

Legal confidentiality and technical controls

Legal privilege and confidentiality duties have jurisdiction-specific scope and exceptions. Ask your adviser what protection applies to the records in question. These legal rules do not prevent a compromised account, stolen device or mistaken disclosure.

Separately ask about access controls, authentication, staff permissions, backups and incident response. Avoid placing every factor needed to recover all assets with one custodian unless that concentration of control is a deliberate and reviewed choice.

Legal Custody and Technical Delivery

Legal advisers and encrypted delivery tools solve different problems. A law firm can preserve originals, give advice, and establish authority. ZeroLatch encrypts selected files in the browser and can send a time-limited access link after the configured check-in timeline and safety period.

Encryption reduces plaintext exposure, but it does not make breaches, outages, recipient compromise, or legal duties impossible. Keep authoritative legal documents with the appropriate professional, and use a conditional delivery tool only as one tested layer of the continuity plan.

Questions to ask the firm

Ask how originals and digital copies are stored, who can access the matter, how multi-factor authentication and backups are managed, how the firm verifies an executor, and what happens if the responsible lawyer retires or the firm closes.

Agree on what the firm should hold and what should remain under independent technical custody. Test the handoff using non-secret records and keep an updated alternate contact.