EMW is a law firm working with regional and global businesses in their corporate and commercial needs as well as individuals with their private client matters. The firm has three offices throughout the UK in Gatwick, London, and Milton Keynes. Founded in 1992, the firm is young and informal — which clients say makes them a refreshing change from other law firms.
The challenge
As a law firm, EMW regularly deals with highly sensitive client information and confidential business data, making cybersecurity one of the firm’s top priorities. But the constantly-evolving threat landscape — including the ongoing risk of phishing attacks and ransomware — means that EMW’s IT department needs to review potential risks regularly.
“There is a requirement, not only from our clients but also from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), that we exceed certain criteria when it comes to being secure and handling confidential data,” said Lee Killner, IT Director at EMW. The firm takes this commitment seriously, having achieved National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) Cyber Essentials certification every year since 2017.
The company’s previous solution performed its core function well — it kept staff from inadvertently sending emails to the wrong recipient — but over time, Killner realized it wasn’t enough. “We had our previous solution in place for three years, and it did what we needed it to do. But security evolves, and we knew we needed to find a way to protect our email more fully, getting more value out of our email security product without having to add an additional module every time. As we came to the end of our contract date, we looked around the market to see what other solutions could meet our needs.”
Egress just works. It’s practically seamless from an end-user and technical perspective. We don’t have to constantly interact with it — it just does what it needs to do, and life is wonderful."
Lee Killner, IT Director, EMW
The solution
EMW reviewed several solutions and ultimately chose Egress Prevent and Protect. “We did a proof of concept with Egress, and not only was it capable of helping prevent misaddressed emails, but it delivered additional value — things like checking for emails that were being sent to personal addresses or warning of domains that were less than three months old. So all of the additional functionality meant that Egress’ solution brought us extra value without having to license, deploy and suffer the ongoing maintenance of additional products,” Killner noted
With the decision made, the implementation of Egress went smoothly. “Our lawyers and other staff already understood the need for email security and keeping them protected from accidentally sharing confidential data,” Killner said. “Egress was received well — we didn’t have any adoption issues. And the implementation was quick It’s my understanding that this was one of the fastest implementations Egress has ever done.”
Killner continued, “Egress just works. It’s practically seamless from an end-user and technical perspective. We don’t have to constantly interact with it — it just does what it needs to do, and life is wonderful."
EMW also appreciated having multiple methods of email protection in a single solution that didn’t break the bank. “The ability to send and receive secure emails easily — including large files — brings additional benefits we haven’t had before. And it’s great value. When it comes to security, you can spend a significant amount of money on it; with Egress, I feel we’re getting better value because it’s feature-rich yet at a reasonable price point,” Killner said.
Egress very much sits in the background and doesn’t interfere or interject unless it absolutely needs to. This gives our lawyers confidence that if Egress is pointing something out, they really need to be aware of it — it’s not an inefficiency. That’s a big win."
Lee Killner, IT Director, EMW
The results
The firm’s response to Egress Prevent and Protect has been overwhelmingly positive. Users appreciate that it keeps confidential data safe without causing unnecessary extra work on their part. “One of our lawyers’ pet peeves is having to click too many times to accomplish a task — ultimately, they’re invoicing out at an hourly rate, and the more inefficiencies you introduce or the number of times you force the user to click on different buttons, the greater their frustration,” Killner explained. “Egress very much sits in the background and doesn’t interfere or interject unless it absolutely needs to. This gives our lawyers confidence that if Egress is pointing something out, they really need to be aware of it — it’s not an inefficiency. That’s a big win.”
EMW’s IT team also appreciates Egress’ responsiveness when the firm needs support. “The response we’ve received has been absolutely bang on, which was almost unexpected. Typically, when we talk to large vendors in this sort of arena, the response to our requests is, ‘Yeah, we’ll look at it and will get around to it.’ But Egress is different — your support team is keen to respond very quickly. I recall logging an issue and the response time was less than an hour, which is fantastic,” said Killner.
Based on EMW’s experience, Killner says that he would wholeheartedly recommend Egress to other law firms considering email security solutions — in fact, the firm recently expanded its use of Egress with the purchase of Egress Defend anti-phishing technology. “There are a lot of players and solutions in the email security space, but Egress is a serious contender and one of the biggest players in the market. With its additional features functionality brings benefits — things like encryption, large file send, and data loss prevention — the Egress Intelligent Email Security suite just makes perfect sense,” he concluded.