Quick Answer: How to Evaluate File Sharing Vendor for Your Law Firm
Before signing with any law firm file sharing software vendor, get clear answers on ten things: data residency, AES-256 encryption (in transit, at rest, and in backups), included MFA and SSO, audit log depth and retention, granular access controls, contractual data terms like NDAs and BAAs, real upload limits, integrations with your DMS and Outlook, off-boarding and data-export rights, and support hours with a named SLA. The ten questions below give you the exact wording and what a good answer looks like.
Your firm is about to sign a three-year contract. The demo went well. The pricing came in fine. Then someone on the buying committee asks: what happens to our matter files if the vendor gets acquired next year? Long pause on the line.
This is where law firms get burned — not in the demo, but in the questions nobody asked. Compliance logos, encryption mentions, and free trials look almost identical across vendors. The real differences only show up when you push past the deck. Below are the ten questions to put on every call before you sign anything.
The 10 Questions Every Law Firm Should Ask
1. Where will our data physically live, and can we choose the jurisdiction?
Data residency matters for Canadian PIPEDA work, EU client matters, and any state with stricter privacy rules. A good answer: a clear list of regions, plus an option to lock your firm’s data to one.
2. What encryption do you use — in transit, at rest, and for backups?
The baseline is AES-256 in transit and at rest. Ask about backups too. Many vendors encrypt the live store but skip the disaster-recovery copies.
3. Are SSO and MFA included, or behind an upgrade?
Multi-factor authentication is now table stakes under ABA Model Rule 1.6(c). If a vendor charges extra for it, that tells you where their security culture sits. SSO should also be standard on any plan a law firm would use.
4. What does your audit log capture, and how long do you keep it?
You want to see who uploaded, viewed, downloaded, and shared every file, with timestamps. Then ask the retention question. Thirty days is too short for a slow-moving matter. Seven years is closer to what most firms actually need.
5. Can we restrict access by user, case, and document?
Granular access matters most during attorney off-boarding and conflict checks. A good vendor lets you cut access at the document level in seconds, not in the next billing cycle.
6. Will you sign an NDA, BAA, or other contractual data terms?
For HIPAA-adjacent matters you may need a Business Associate Agreement. For confidential client work you may want a custom NDA. Vendors who refuse, or only sign on the enterprise tier, are telling you what they prioritize.
7. What is your true upload limit, and how do you handle interruptions?
“Unlimited” usually has a footnote. Ask about per-file caps, total transfer volumes, and resumable uploads for large discovery productions or video depositions.
8. What integrations do you offer with our DMS, Outlook, and SSO provider?
A file sharing tool your attorneys will not open is wasted spend. Outlook plug-ins, NetDocuments or iManage connectors, and SSO support all reduce friction. So does a clean mobile app.
9. What does off-boarding look like and who owns the data when we leave?
Ask before you sign, not after. You want a contractual right to a clean export, a clear deletion timeline, and proof of destruction.
10. What is your support model — hours, escalation, and who actually answers?
A real human at 11 PM during a production deadline is worth more than another feature. Ask about SLAs, support hours, and whether enterprise support is bundled or upsold later.
A Scorecard You Can Actually Use
Run every shortlisted vendor through the same ten questions in the same order. Score each answer on a simple one-to-three scale:
1 — Concerning. Vague, evasive, or “it is on the roadmap.”
2 — Acceptable. Meets the baseline but nothing more.
3 — Strong. Specific, documented, and backed by certifications, contracts, or audit history.
Three questions carry more weight than the rest: encryption and key management (#2), audit logs (#4), and contractual data terms (#6). A vendor that scores below 2 on any of these three should drop off your list, regardless of the total. These are the questions a court, regulator, or insurer is most likely to revisit later.
Once everyone on the buying committee has scored, compare side by side. Anything that scores three across the board earns a deeper diligence pass with your IT and risk teams. Anything averaging below 2.2 is not worth a second meeting.
A quick tip: paste the ten questions into a shared spreadsheet, give each reviewer their own column, and average the scores. Patterns show up faster when more than one person on the team is scoring the same demo.
How TitanFile Answers These Ten Questions
TitanFile is an award-winning, secure file sharing platform built specifically for law firms and other regulated industries. The ten questions above are basically a transcript of the calls we have with new firms every week.
Here is the short version. Your data lives in the region you choose — USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, or the Middle East. Files are protected with AES-256 encryption in transit and at rest, including backups. SSO, MFA, granular per-user access, and tamper-evident audit logs are standard on every plan, not gated behind upgrades. SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications are current, and the contractual data terms your matter requires are on the table.
The practical pieces matter too. Upload speeds are among the fastest in the category, which means a 50 GB discovery production lands in minutes instead of hours. Resumable uploads handle dropped connections without starting over. Outlook, NetDocuments, and major SSO integrations keep attorneys inside the workflow they already know. And our support team actually picks up including the nights and weekends that real production deadlines run on.
Most firms are running on it within a day. Start a 15-day free trial, or book a demo to walk through these ten questions with our team.
FAQs About Legal File Sharing
What should a law firm look for in file sharing software?
At minimum: AES-256 encryption, MFA and SSO, granular access controls, a complete audit trail, data residency options, a willingness to sign contractual data terms, and responsive human support.
Is Dropbox safe enough for a law firm?
Standard Dropbox lacks legal-grade audit logs, granular per-document access, and the contractual terms most law firms need. The business plans are closer, but state bars increasingly recommend purpose-built secure file sharing for privileged client work.
What is the difference between secure file sharing and a virtual data room?
A virtual data room is built for one-time high-stakes events like M&A diligence. Secure file sharing is built for everyday matter work such as opposing counsel, clients, experts, co-counsel. Most firms need the second, not the first.