As law firms continue to transform their workflows and technology in an effort to become more efficient, many are adopting Microsoft Copilot. Yet while Microsoft Copilot is an extremely powerful tool, capable of reshaping a firm’s processes, many CIOs and other firm leaders share a very real concern about the possibility of oversharing sensitive client/matter data. You probably share these concerns yourself.
That’s because when AI tools are given uninhibited access to firmwide data, there’s a risk that the tool can deliver results from outdated documents and incorrect applications — or worse, from documents that a user is not authorized to access. Without the right permissions and enforcement, firm professionals may be forced to spend precious time cleaning up the results — the very problem the tool was meant to solve in the first place.
But despite these risks, your firm shouldn’t shy away from AI efficiency tools. Instead, you should adopt a tool that works in tandem with Microsoft Copilot to enforce accurate permissions for client and matter data across various data sources.
Establish, maintain, and enforce permissions
Nelson Mullins, an Am Law 100 law firm, provides a good example of what can happen when Microsoft Copilot is used in conjunction with a third-party solution specifically designed to establish, maintain, and enforce permissions.
Nelson Mullins implemented Intapp Walls to monitor and enforce matter permissions and recently expanded the tool to integrate with Microsoft Copilot as well.
With Intapp Walls, your firm can enforce user-based permissions across all of your applications and systems. This means that if one of your professionals is prohibited from viewing specific data and files, Intapp Walls will block it from appearing in search results for that user, regardless of the file’s location or system.
These security measures apply beyond document management solutions. Intapp Walls can manage a variety of access points, including Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and even non-Microsoft based systems such as NetDocuments.
For Nelson Mullins, Intapp Walls has been a game-changer. “Because we use Intapp Walls to enforce access rules across our networks and applications, I can confidently point Microsoft Copilot wherever we want, and Microsoft Copilot will pull only from matter that the user has permission to access,” said Torie Carrillo, Applications Manager at Nelson Mullins.
Set it and forget it
Manually managing and enforcing permissions firmwide can be daunting and time-consuming — but with Intapp Walls you get the ease of knowing that firm policies will be enforced automatically. Intapp Walls also automatically corrects unauthorized modifications, and prevents users without the correct permissions from working around these restrictions without a human monitor.
In addition, you’ll gain important insights into how your teams are interacting with firm data. That’s because Intapp Walls lets you monitor which Microsoft SharePoint sites and Teams are being indexed and accessed by Microsoft Copilot. This will help you identify high-collaboration areas where additional security controls may be necessary — taking the pressure off your professionals to anticipate risks on their own.
Read the case study to learn more about how Nelson Mullins is safely monitoring document access points and user permissions when working with Microsoft Copilot — and how your firm can too.