Author Archives: INF_WP_U53r

Common LPL Coverage Issues Overlooked By Attorneys

Posted on by

Many lawyers have some type of ownership/equity interest in or with the clients they serve.  Others serve on local nonprofit boards within their community.  All do so usually without completely understanding how these outside interests and relationships affect their professional liability insurance coverage.

Most lawyers professional liability policies exclude coverage for those professional services that lawyers provide to clients where the lawyer has an ownership interest in or with that client.  Some policies go so far as to include ownership interests of the lawyer’s spouse!  Common examples that I have seen on lawyer applications are: ownership in title agencies, real estate, and small businesses of all kinds.

LPL Polices also exclude the acts of the lawyer when acting as a director, officer or board member of entities, including nonprofits.  Lawyers are often asked to sit on boards because they ARE Lawyers and are tapped for their knowledge of the law during board meetings.  It is very difficult for the lawyer and the board to distinguish when the lawyer is acting as a board member and when and if the lawyer is acting in the capacity of a lawyer and lawyer client relationship.  It is easy for the lawyer to get caught in a situation where the board believes he/she provided legal advice however the lawyer believes that he/she provided that advice as a member of the board.  In the event that “advice” leads to a bad outcome for the board and eventually ends in a malpractice claim, the lawyer could be without coverage!

Before accepting board positions or investing with or in clients, all lawyers should ask how this relationship will impact the professional liability insurance from both a coverage and cost standpoint.

 

 

Tips on reporting claims and potential claims

Posted on by

When insureds report a claim to their carrier, the expectation is the claim will be covered and their assets and reputation be protected.  While this happens the majority of the time, there are situations when the worst occurs and the claim is denied coverage.  There are several reasons insurance carriers decline coverage on reported professional liability claims.  One of the reasons claims are denied is due to the late reporting of the claim.  Although late reporting is a cause for claim denial, it can be avoided by the insured.

Professional liability insurance policies require that all claims be reported in the policy period that the insured first becomes aware of the claim.  This is also true for potential claims.  Most carriers have wording in the policy that states the insured needs to report those incidents that the insured could reasonably foresee the incident may lead to claim.  Failure to report these potential claims may lead to a denial in coverage.

AttorneyAtWindowIt sounds easy and it should be easy for the firm to report claims and potential claims as soon as they are aware of them.  Unfortunately, it is never easy.  No firm wants to “think” they made a mistake or a client is unhappy with their services.  In addition, some insureds think that the mere reporting of a claim or potential claim will increase their insurance premium, so the claim goes unreported.  Not true.  The mere reporting of a single claim or potential claim does not necessarily increase your premium.

Bottom line…you pay a lot of money to secure the policy, don’t jeopardize the coverage when you need it most.  Report issues early.    Perhaps the tips below will help you make sure your claim or potential claim is reported in a timely fashion:

  1. Meet monthly with your staff/lawyers to review the “tough” cases.
  2. Encourage your staff/lawyers to bring problem cases to your attention.  Don’t punish.
  3. At renewal time, ask all lawyers in the firm to answer the potential claim and claim question on the renewal application. Have them sign and date it.
  4. Most carriers now have a claim hot line or help line that is available to insureds.  Use it.
  5. Make sure that your staff/lawyers know how the insurance policy works and that claims and potential claims need to be reported immediately or they risk losing coverage.  Identify a point “claims person.”  Have all claims and potential claims directed to that person for review and reporting.

December Attorney Pro Risk Tip of the Month

Posted on by

ACCEPTING GIFTS
Know the rules regarding gifts. Generally, a lawyer may receive modest, unsolicited gifts from clients(1). However, a lawyer should not solicit substantial gifts from a client, including testamentary gifts, unless the client is a close relative (2).

 

 

1 See MODEL RULES OF PROF’L CONDUCT R.1.8(c) (1983) (amended 2013). 2 Id.

Tip courtesy of  www.attorneyprotective.com

November Attorney Pro Risk Tip of the Month

Posted on by

Procrastination avoidance tips include:

  • Schedule the thing that you least want to do as your first activity for the day – get it out of the way.
  • Delegate what you keep putting off, if possible.
  • Refer the case you’re avoiding to another lawyer (following the rules in your jurisdiction).
  • Attend Attorney Protective’s free webinar on time management December 2, 2016.

Tip courtesy of  www.attorneyprotective.com

I received an email with a ShareFile Attachment from INF. Now what?

Posted on by

Integrity First Corporation sends emails with encrypted ShareFile attachments for our clients’ protection.  We want to protect YOUR personally identifiable information, or PII, for short.  The email will say “This message contains attachments delivered via ShareFile” as shown below:

1-emailimageIf you receive an email from INF with an encrypted attachment from Sharefile, DON’T PANIC!  Just follow these 4 simple steps and you can retrieve the attachment in a snap:

Step 1 – The email will contain a link to the attachments that says “Download the attachments by clicking here”.  Click on the “clicking here” link.

Step 2 – This will take you to the INF ShareFile portal via your browser.  As seen in the image below, all of the attachments are selected for download by default.  Make sure that only the attachments that you want to download have a check in their checkbox.

2-downloadsimageStep 3 – Click “Download” and your browser will download the selected files into your “Downloads” folder.  Most browsers will show the download file in the bottom menu screen on the left as well.

3-downloadmenuimage

Step 4 – Open your “Downloads” folder and retrieve your attachments!

4-downloadsfileimageBonus Step 5 (If there are multiple attachments) – When there are multiple attachments, they will download as a zip file.  To open the zip file, right-click on it and select “Extract All”.

5-extractimage

This will create a pop up window, where you select “Extract”, and the individual attachments will then be available.

6-zipped

But wait!  What if I don’t know how to find my “Downloads” folder?

To find your “Downloads” folder, follow these 3 easy steps:

Step 1 – Click on the Windows “Start” button

Step 2 – In the “Search programs and files” search box, type “Downloads”

7-searchbar

Step 3 – Click on the “Downloads” folder that it finds.

8-downloadstyped

Your downloaded files will be located within that folder.

Keeping Your Information Safe In the Digital Age – Part 3

Posted on by

With the onslaught of data breaches that happened in 2015 (about 65,000 according to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report), INF presents this multi-part blog series about keeping your data safe in the digital age.

Accessing Your Password Database on Different Devices

The last blog post of this series covered setting up a password database in KeePass and accessing it on your personal computer.  This blog post will cover accessing your passwords on multiple devices.

Storing your Password Database in an Accessible Place

If you only want access to your passwords on your laptop or desktop, storing the database file (*.kdbx file) locally is fine.  However, if you want to be able to retrieve your passwords from your phone, tablet, etc., the file needs to be stored in a cloud.  If you already have a cloud account, you can store it there.  If you do not have a cloud account and you won’t be using it for large files, Dropbox is great free option to consider (https://www.dropbox.com/).  It takes about 3 minutes to sign up and you get 2GB of space for free.  Your *.kdbx file won’t even use 1% of that amount.

Once you have your Cloud account set up, move your password database file to the cloud.  This benefits you in multiple ways.  First of all, you can access your passwords from all of your devices.  Secondly, your password database will now be backed up on a regular basis.  In fact, Dropbox keeps all deleted and updated versions of your files from the last thirty days.  So, if you accidently delete your file from anywhere, you can restore it from dropbox.com.

Retrieving Passwords on your iPhone or iPad

If you want to access passwords on your iPhone, you need to download the app for the cloud that you are using onto your device. In the case of Dropbox, you will download the Dropbox app from the app store and use your account information to sign in.  You will then need to download the app “MiniKeePass”.

To load your password database into MiniKeePass, open the Dropbox app (or your Cloud app) and click on your *.kdbx file.  The cloud app will not be able to show a preview of the file, which is expected.  Click on the icon of the square with an arrow pointing up, which should give you a menu with multiple options.  Click the “Open in…” option and select “Copy to MiniKeePass”.  This has now stored a copy of the password database in your MiniKeePass app.  This is important to note as it is just a copy.  If you make changes to the file on another device, you will have to go through the process of loading your password database again.

The actions above will open MiniKeePass and display the database file. To open it, click on the filename.  The app will ask for the database password.  Enter your password and your database will display.  You can browse by folder or you can use the “Search” box.  To use the passwords, click on an entry and click on the username or password.  This copies that text to the clipboard.  You can then paste it wherever you would like.

Retrieving Passwords on your Android 

If you want to access passwords on your Android, you need to download the app for the cloud that you are using. In the case of Dropbox, you will download the Dropbox app from the app store and use your account information to sign in.  You will then need to download the app KeePass2Android from the app store.  Launch the newly downloaded app and click the “Open File” button.  You can browse to your password database file in your cloud and open it with your password.  You will then be able to search for the password that you want and copy/paste it any location.

Retrieving Passwords on your Chromebook

If you are using a Chromebook, there is a strong possibility that the cloud that you are utilizing is Google Drive.  Place your *.kdbx file in your Google Drive cloud and install the KeePass Chrome app.  Open your new app and select “Open File”.  Browse to your KeePass Database and enter the password.  KeePass Chrome will open the file and you can use the passwords as needed.

What Do Data Breaches Mean for Client Confidentiality?

Posted on by

I have read several articles and blog posts on cyber security and privacy data breaches but few pertained specifically to law firms.  Fewer still provided information on actual breaches or cyber-attacks on law firms.  The blog written by attorney Paul Lafayette on the Professional Solutions Web Site does a good job addressing this issue.  Follow the link to read more………. www.psicinsurance.com/posts-articles/attorneys/risk-management/what-do-data-breaches-mean-for-client-confidentiality.aspx

Should you use free Wifi…the answer is resoundingly “No!”

Posted on by

High resolution mobile phone graphic with Wifi Icon

It all starts out innocently enough.  You decide to stop into your favorite coffee place.  You order a drink, sit down, and pull out your laptop or other mobile device.  You don’t want to use your precious data from your wireless plan, so you think “No worries, they offer free wifi here.”  You connect to the free wifi and start browsing.  You check your email, your bank account and then online shop while you finish your drink.  A perfectly innocuous afternoon…or so you thought.  Little did you know that the person sitting across from you, seemingly having a day similar to yours, was capturing all of your online movements and information.  They were then able to check your email, access your bank account and shop online using your PayPal and Amazon accounts.

They were able to gather all of your information using a fairly simple program called a packet sniffer (or packet analyzer).  These programs are easy to install and use, but best of all, some of them are free, or so a hacker would say.  Because it is so simple, this exploit is used all of the time with free wifi.

When you go online using a wireless connection, you communicate via packets with the router.  Packets contain all of the information for the web page that you are using, including any text that you may type, such as your credit card information or passwords.  One web page can consist of multiple packets.  A packet sniffer can connect to the same wireless network and collect copies of these packets.  It then will put the packets together like you would piece together a puzzle.  Once the sniffer has put the pieces back together, the person implementing the sniffer has the information of everyone on the network for the entire time that they were there.

The reason that packet sniffers work with free wifi is because there is no encryption algorithm in place.  If the wireless router employs an encryption technique, the packets become encrypted, and thus, unreadable to the sniffer.  They can still collect your packets, but they can’t do anything with them.  It would be like someone having a puzzle where none of the pieces fit together.  With encryption, the router knows how to decrypt your packets, but no one else can.

If you are required to enter a password for the wireless network, that normally means that it is encrypted.  However, if the password is known to everyone, then the packet sniffer knows as well, and you are back where you started.  Therefore, you want to connect to a network that has a protected key.

Before connecting to a network, look to see the encryption type.  You want to make sure that it is WPA2.  Two types of networks that you want to stay away from are WPA and WEP.  These are easily hacked and thus, should never be used.  If you are on a WIndows machine, to see the encryption type, click on the wireless indicator and select your network.  The encryption type will be displayed under “Security Type”.

But wait, I still want to be able to use free wifi…is that even possible?

It is possible to save your data plan and still make use of the free wifi when you employ a virtual private network, or a VPN.  When you use a VPN, it encrypts the packets for you only, thus making your packet puzzle impossible for a packet sniffer to solve.  Using a VPN is easy, as you just sign up for a VPN account with one of the many VPN providers.  The cost is normally less than $50 per year.

You can use your VPN account with all of your devices.  Generally, tablets come with the functionality for a VPN connection built into the settings.  You will need to consult the VPN service that you signed up with for specifics.  If you want to use the VPN on a laptop or desktop, you will generally need to download an executable program from the VPN service and install it.  Then, every time you want to connect to a free wifi network, you will launch the VPN program first, sign in, and then feel free to safely browse the internet in obscurity.

I don’t want to sign up for a VPN and I don’t mind using my data.

If you don’t mind using your data in your phone plan, then connecting to your phone or tablet’s personal hotspot is the most secure option.  Simply turn on your hotspot and connect your device.  You may be using your data plan, but you can do so knowing that your data is safe.

July Attorney Pro Risk Tip of the Month

Posted on by

Don’t give informal legal advice to friends or family.
Don’t give informal legal advice to friends or family. It can be tempting at a party or family event, but it could be harmful to both yourself and the receiver of the advice. Your advice, given casually, may be less well thought-out than usual, or not backed by needed research. Also, you could be creating a conflicts issue for yourself by giving advice to a person who has not been through a conflicts of interest check first.

Tip courtesy of  www.attorneyprotective.com

INF Attends Westmoreland County Bench Bar

Posted on by

INtegrity First Corporation attended the Westmoreland County Bar Association Bench Bar at Nemacolin June 8 – June 10, 2016.

Nemacolin

Don and Mark attended the Golf Event on June 8 and shot a great round!

StaceyandMarkNemacolin

Everyone attended the Vendor Fair on June 9th.  It was great to see all of our clients from Westmoreland County and the event was excellent!  It was nice to celebrate our 10th anniversary with the Westmoreland County Bar Association.