The LegalTech industry has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years, with software solutions transforming how law firms, legal departments, and even individuals access and manage legal services. LegalTech software is now used for tasks ranging from document management and case tracking to billing, compliance, and contract lifecycle management. The benefits of digitization are significant, however, it comes with significant expectations of software security, especially given the users of legal technology are lawyers and their customers.

With increasing cyber threats and strict compliance requirements such as the ABA Model Rules, GDPR, and data protection laws, LegalTech companies must prioritize robust software security to protect sensitive legal information, ensure regulatory compliance, and maintain trust among legal professionals and clients.

In this blog, we’ll explore why the LegalTech sector increasingly depends on software security, what LegalTech companies should prioritize when improving their security practices, how application security fits into that framework, and how SOOS can help LegalTech companies protect their and their customers’ business.

The Importance of LegalTech Software Security

LegalTech companies manage highly confidential legal documents and client data, making them prime targets for cybercriminals. Proper cybersecurity protects sensitive data such as client records, case details, intellectual property, and confidential communications, but it also protects’ legal companies’ reputations, which face arguably more scrutiny than companies in other industries. As legal companies increasingly depend on cloud-based solutions and other digital platforms to streamline their processes, addressing the rising threat of cyberattacks and protecting their software is even more paramount. 

Strong software security measures provide several benefits, including:

Protecting Privileged and Confidential Legal Data

LegalTech platforms store sensitive case files, client communications, and legal research. Unauthorized access or a data breach could lead to legal malpractice claims, reputational damage, and regulatory penalties. Security must be embedded within software at every level to safeguard confidential legal information.

Ensuring Compliance with Legal and Data Protection Regulations

Legal professionals operate under strict confidentiality rules and data protection laws, such as GDPR in the EU and attorney-client privilege regulations worldwide. Non-compliance can result in fines, legal actions, and loss of professional credibility. Security frameworks must align with these regulations to meet compliance requirements while maintaining operational efficiency.

Reducing Software Risks

The legal sector is increasingly targeted by cyber threats, including ransomware, phishing attacks, and insider threats. Security strategies such as continuous vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, and incident response planning help LegalTech companies detect and mitigate risks before they impact legal operations and business viability.

Maintaining System Integrity and Client Trust

LegalTech platforms must provide secure and uninterrupted services to maintain trust with law firms, corporate legal teams, and clients. A security breach or downtime can disrupt critical legal proceedings, erode trust, and lead to lost business.

LegalTech Software Security Best Practices

Unlike their users, LegalTech companies don’t always have a security and compliance first mindset. After all, their business is to develop new products and technology for the legal industry, not to be lawyers. Because of this, cybersecurity can feel like a daunting and neverending need that’s better to outsource or consolidate with a few key team members. The reality is that’s not necessary: there are ways LegalTech companies can build a security mindset into their development processes and secure their software without requiring either an overhaul of their current systems or significant resources to be dedicated to security needs. The following best practices are a good place to get started:

Integrate Security into the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)

To incorporate security into every stage of development, prioritize establishing secure coding practices, implementing automated security testing, and adding routine security audits to help identify and mitigate vulnerabilities before software is deployed. Embedding security early in the development process minimizes risks and reduces costly post-release fixes, as well as protects businesses from public incidents, so it’s well worth it to invest in upfront. That said, with the right tool, software security can be built into the development process. For example, developers writing code can use SOOS to identify potential vulnerabilities in real time, as they’re building software, so they can find alternate components and don’t have to wait to finish and commit their build to find out if there are any issues that need to be resolved.

Encrypt Sensitive Legal Data

Encryption is essential for protecting legal documents and client communications. Apply industry standard encryption protocols such as AES-256 to both stored and transmitted data to prevent unauthorized access and ensure compliance with data protection laws.

Enforce Strong Access Controls and Authentication

Restrict access to legal data through multi-factor authentication (MFA) and role-based access controls (RBAC). Limiting access to only authorized legal professionals and software users minimizes security risks and protects client confidentiality.

Implement Continuous Vulnerability Scanning and Testing

Continuous vulnerability monitoring for LegalTech systems is important because known vulnerabilities are changing all of the time. Automated security scanning of applications, third-party dependencies, and infrastructure helps teams identify and address security gaps as soon as possible after they’re identified, and ideally before they can be exploited.

Meet and Maintain Regulatory Compliance

ABA cybersecurity guidelines, GDPR, and other relevant standards outline security standards LegalTech organizations are expected to follow to gain and maintain compliance. But becoming compliant and demonstrating compliance if or when needed doesn’t have to be time consuming. Implementing security controls, maintaining audit logs, and automating compliance reporting streamline regulatory adherence and reduce administrative burdens.

What About Application Security in LegalTech?

Applications are the core of LegalTech solutions, serving as the primary interface for law firms, corporate legal departments, and legal service providers. Securing these applications requires more than just perimeter defenses; code-level security is crucial. To protect their business without creating an unmanageable level of work, LegalTech companies can adopt application security tools and practices that support:

• Proactive Vulnerability Management: Identifying and fixing security weaknesses early in development reduces risk exposure. Security patching, automated scanning, and secure code reviews help maintain application integrity while ensuring compliance with industry regulations.
• Third-Party Component Security: Many LegalTech applications rely on open source libraries, which can introduce vulnerabilities if not properly managed. Software Composition Analysis (SCA) helps detect and mitigate risks in third-party dependencies.
• Secure APIs: APIs facilitate integration between legal platforms and external services. Unsecured APIs present a significant attack vector, making authentication, encryption, and regular dynamic application security testing essential.

How SOOS Strengthens LegalTech Software Security

SOOS provides a comprehensive application security platform that is easy to integrate and cost-effective for LegalTech businesses. Here’s how SOOS helps LegalTech companies strengthen their software security while maintaining and demonstrating compliance with key security and data privacy laws:

Comprehensive Application Security

LegalTech platforms rely on open source libraries. SOOS scans dependencies for known vulnerabilities and license compliance issues, ensuring that third-party components do not introduce security or legal risks. SOOS’s deep-tree scanning technology uncovers hidden vulnerabilities that other tools can’t by looking deep in an application’s dependency tree. Not needing to sacrifice thoroughness of security scanning with ease of use is one of many reasons why SOOS stands out as the effective and no-nonsense application security platform. 

A Unified View of Software Risk

SOOS offers centralized security tooling and visibility, offering one view of open source software risk in one place. With Software Composition Analysis (SCA), Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), License Analysis, Governance, and Compliance, and SBOM Management in one place, SOOS ensures thorough protection across the entire software ecosystem and brings all teams involved in software security together in one place. This creates a shared understanding of risks and needs, as well as saves time by consolidating reporting and action items across all areas of software applications.

Automated Vulnerability Management and Continuous Scanning

SOOS integrates seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines, providing real-time vulnerability scanning in developer workflows. This allows development teams to detect and address security risks within their workflows, minimizing disruptions and reducing exposure to emerging threats because fewer issues go live where they can potentially be exploited. Automated prioritization ensures that high-risk vulnerabilities are remediated first and configurable settings let companies determine everything from risk levels to necessary information, so they can be alerted when they need to know of something and not be bothered any other time.

Built for Developers, Compliance Teams, and Legal Professionals

SOOS is designed to integrate seamlessly into development workflows while providing clear security insights for legal and compliance teams. Role-based views mean different team members can see the reports that matter most to them from within the same unified dashboard, and business settings like allowable license types and issue management can be managed collaboratively. With an intuitive interface, unlimited scanning, and transparent pricing, SOOS enables organizations to efficiently manage security across teams, reducing the mental burden by automating decisioning in day-to-day security operations and alerting teams when their attention is needed.

Security Without Compromise

Unlike competitors that limit scans, SOOS offers unlimited security testing, ensuring comprehensive vulnerability detection at every stage of development. Continuous scanning eliminates security gaps and provides LegalTech companies with a proactive approach to application security, because they don’t have to limit when and what they can scan, they can simply build in scanning everywhere it will help catch potential issues.

Automated Compliance Reporting and Regulatory Support

SOOS simplifies compliance tracking with automated reports tailored to legal industry regulations, including GDPR, ABA cybersecurity guidelines, and other frameworks. These reports help LegalTech companies maintain transparency, streamline audits, and ensure compliance with data protection laws.

AppSec That Just Works

SOOS delivers a developer- and legal-friendly security solution that integrates effortlessly with existing tools. Its advanced scanning technology detects vulnerabilities overlooked by other platforms, while its intuitive interface and dedicated customer support make security implementation straightforward and questions and requests handled quickly. With ongoing platform enhancements based on user feedback, multi-tenant capabilities, and even API access to bring SOOS data into a company’s own tools, SOOS ensures LegalTech companies have the security they need to protect client data and maintain compliance in the way that’s best for them.

LegalTech Security: From Daunting to Doable

LegalTech security is critical, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. SOOS helps LegalTech companies implement an integrated security strategy that protects privileged legal data, ensures regulatory compliance, and mitigates cyber threats. By embedding security into development, continuously monitoring for vulnerabilities, and streamlining issue remediation and reporting, LegalTech companies can maintain a strong security posture with SOOS. Not only that, LegalTech businesses don’t have to choose between improving their security and improving their products; SOOS provides automated tools to help them strengthen their software security without adding complexity. To learn more about how SOOS makes LegalTech security manageable, contact us or try SOOS for free today.