Page 5 - JanuaryFebruary26 Report

The Digital Mess The Digital Mess
No Lawyer Wants to Inherit
We all hope our law firms will exist in perpe-
tuity, but experience tells us most legal
associations will come to an end.
The focus used to be on what to do with the paper
files when a firm ceased to exist. With more acces-
sible technology catering to the legal profession, the
bar association receives fewer calls asking what to
do with a room (or garage) full of paper files when
a firm breaks up.1 This has given way to a new ques-
tion: what do you do with all those electronic files,
stored on a server or in the cloud, when a firm ceases
doing business?
First, look at the partnership agreement. Does it
outline what to do with client files in the event the
firm dissolves? If it doesn’t, have that conversation
with your partners now and amend your partnership
agreement. If you employ associates, your employ-
ment agreement should lay out the protocol to be
followed in the event the associate leaves. The Ohio
Board of Professional Conduct provides a wealth
of information in the Ethics Guides available on its
The authors of
this article are a
subcommittee of the
Ethics Committee:
Rachel Alexander,
Phyllis Bossin,
George Jonson, and
Megan Roach.
website: Client File Retention Guide (2016), Switching
Firms Guide (2017), and Succession Planning Guide
(2017).
What are the options for electronic files? Can the
files be segregated by attorney? Hopefully, your files
are set up so if an attorney leaves, their open elec-
tronic files can be pulled and sent with them through
an electronic file transfer or a thumb drive. That same
process can be followed if the firm dissolves. (If the
firm remains in existence, the firm can and should
retain a copy of the file).
But what if all the files are on a server, accessible to
all attorneys in the firm? If the server is cloud-based,
one option is to go through the files and divide them
up to be transferred to each attorney’s new server.2
What if the files are so voluminous that it really doesn’t
make sense to go through all of them and divide the
files up? Should each attorney retain access to the old
firm’s cloud-based server? Determining who has access
and what exactly they have access to would need to
be done on a case-by-case basis. Consider potential
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