IT Support, Connectivity & Cybersecurity for Law Firms

Solicitors hold legally privileged information, move client money, and store sensitive personal data that attackers target on purpose. A breach is not just a financial event: it triggers professional negligence exposure, SRA scrutiny, and reputation damage that takes years to repair. AMVIA builds the security programme around the specific risks legal practices face, then runs it for you.

What cyber threats are UK law firms most exposed to?

Law firms face three dominant threats: targeted phishing, ransomware, and business email compromise (BEC) — fraud where an attacker hijacks an email thread to redirect funds. These map directly to the legal workflow, hitting conveyancing payments, client account credentials, and privileged case files.

• 65% of UK law firms have been targeted by a cyber attack (2025 UK sector data)
• 77% of law firms reported phishing as their primary threat (2025 UK sector data)
• 23% of firms had client money stolen through cyber fraud (SRA, 2025)
• £3.58M average UK data breach cost (IBM 2024)

Phishing is the entry point for most incidents. The government's Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 found phishing was the single most common breach type, identified by 85% of businesses that experienced a breach. For a law firm, one clicked link can expose an entire case management system.

Why do law firms need specialist cybersecurity?

Generic IT support secures laptops and email. Legal practice needs more: protection wrapped around client money movement, privileged-document handling, and a regulator that expects evidence of reasonable steps. AMVIA designs for those obligations rather than bolting them on afterwards.

The SRA expects firms to take proportionate steps to protect client data and funds. The consequences of getting it wrong stretch well beyond the breach itself — regulatory sanction, indemnity premium increases, and clients who walk. The National Cyber Security Centre's guidance for small organisations sets out the baseline controls every firm should evidence, and AMVIA implements and monitors them on your behalf.

What does AMVIA do to protect law firms?

AMVIA runs a layered, managed programme built for legal sector requirements — detection, email defence, Microsoft 365 hardening, data loss prevention, and staff training — under one provider with one point of accountability.

• Managed detection and response — 24/7 threat monitoring across endpoints, email and cloud using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, watched by AMVIA's in-house UK SOC. Threats are contained before they reach client data.
• Email security and BEC protection — the Barracuda email security suite stops conveyancing fraud, client impersonation and targeted phishing before it lands. We configure DMARC, DKIM and SPF so spoofed firm domains are rejected.
• SRA compliance support — documented technical controls, MFA enforcement, tested backups and a response runbook that includes SRA notification steps where client money or data is compromised.
• Microsoft 365 security — proper Microsoft 365 security hardening and monitoring for Teams, SharePoint and Exchange, where most privileged communication now lives.
• Data loss prevention (DLP) — policies across email, cloud storage and endpoints that stop privileged files leaving the firm, accidentally or maliciously.
• Legal staff security training — phishing simulations and awareness training built around conveyancing fraud, social engineering and safe client communication.

In-house IT vs AMVIA managed security for law firms

A single internal IT person rarely covers 24/7 monitoring, regulatory documentation, and incident response at once. The table below shows where managed security closes the gap.

How does conveyancing fraud work, and how do you stop it?

Conveyancing fraud — sometimes called Friday afternoon fraud — is where an attacker intercepts the email thread between a solicitor and client, then sends fraudulent bank details at the point of completion. Single losses can reach hundreds of thousands of pounds, and client money is rarely recovered.

The controls that stop it are specific and testable:

• DMARC, DKIM and SPF configured so your domain cannot be spoofed
• Encrypted email for any financial or completion communication
• Mandatory telephone verification of bank details using independently sourced numbers
• Email security that flags lookalike domains and reply-thread anomalies

If money or data is taken, report it to the ICO and the SRA without delay — the ICO's personal data breach guidance sets the 72-hour notification expectation for qualifying breaches.

Law firm cybersecurity checklist

Use this as the baseline for any UK legal practice. AMVIA implements, evidences and monitors every item.

• MFA on all email, case management and client portal accounts
• Advanced email security with BEC and impersonation detection
• Endpoint protection on every solicitor device
• Encrypted file transfer for client documents
• Regular phishing simulations for all staff
• Tested incident response plan with SRA notification procedures
• Client bank-detail verification procedures for conveyancing

How much does managed cybersecurity for law firms cost?

Cost depends on headcount, the number of sites, and how much of your Microsoft 365 estate needs hardening — but it is far lower than the cost of a single conveyancing loss or an SRA enforcement event. AMVIA prices per user per month so it scales with your fee earners, and a free security audit gives you a fixed scope before you commit. AMVIA holds Cyber Essentials Plus and is a Microsoft Solutions Partner, so the controls you pay for are independently verified.

Beyond security: the full IT stack for law firms

The SRA holds firms accountable for protecting client data and money — but the working day runs on more than security controls. Case management, hearings, client calls and completions all depend on connectivity and phones, and when those come from three different suppliers, an outage becomes a blame exercise. AMVIA runs the whole estate under one SLA with a <1hr critical response commitment.

Connectivity built for legal work

Legal workloads are upload-heavy: document bundles, disclosure exchanges, video hearings. Contended consumer broadband handles them poorly. AMVIA provides dedicated leased lines from £69/month — symmetrical, uncontended and SLA-backed — with full-fibre broadband as a lighter-weight option or a backup path on a physically separate network. For firms doing conveyancing, a resilient pair means a carrier fault on completion day is an inconvenience rather than a crisis.

Phones and the PSTN switch-off

The UK's analogue phone network switches off on 31 January 2027, and every firm still on traditional lines needs a migration plan before then. AMVIA's business VoIP runs from £5.95/user/month with Microsoft Teams integration, keeping client calls in the same secured environment as your privileged communications.

IT support with security built in

AMVIA's managed IT support runs £25–£60/user/month depending on service level. Because the same team patches your devices and monitors them for threats, there is no gap between "IT's problem" and "security's problem" — and no gap is where conveyancing fraud lives. One provider, one SLA, one number to call.