In the wake of cybersecurity law firm alerts, legal services provider Elevate Services has hired the chief information officer of leading US firm LeClairRyan as  chief information officer to strengthen information security systems and capabilities for the company and its clients. Howard 'Bud' Phillips joins the company as government agencies warn US law firms of their vulnerability to cyberattacks. According to cyber security firm Mandiant, at least 80 of the 100 biggest firms in the country have been hacked since 2011.

Securing sensitive information

Mr Phillips will be developing initiatives to secure sensitive information for Elevate internally and for its law firm clients. He has more than 25 years’ experience integrating technology, operations, and strategy. Most recently, as CIO for LeClairRyan, he transformed the firm’s legacy IT architecture to a virtualised, secure, and cost-efficient system, harnessing Infrastructure as a Service cloud computing technology, to support the rapid firm growth. At Capital One, Phillips led the customer acquisition operations group, achieving significant gains in quality, capacity and cost-effectiveness by applying Agile and Lean leadership and management principles. Prior to that, as a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting and Monitor Group, Phillips advised many large corporate clients on industry evolution, cost reduction, acquisition strategy, market positioning and competitive intelligence.

Secure IT infrastructure

'Bud’s specific experience designing and executing the transformation of a law firm’s technology platform will be valuable to Elevate and our clients,' said Liam Brown, Founder and Chairman of Elevate Services. 'He will help us to better scale and secure our own IT infrastructure, particularly for our cloud-based software products, and strengthen our IT information security practice for law firms.'