(Law, Accounting, Advisory)
Fractional CISO and Security Leadership for Law Firms, Accounting Practices & Advisory Firms
Your firm handles sensitive client information: deal documents, financials, tax records, personal data. Your clients trust you with their most confidential matters. And increasingly, those clients are asking hard questions about your security posture.
Corporate clients want completed security questionnaires. Cyberinsurers want detailed documentation. Partners worry about the reputational damage a breach would cause. Meanwhile, IT is a small internal team or an MSP—and security strategy isn’t their specialty.
Guardantix provides fractional CISO and vCIO leadership for professional services firms: law firms, accounting and tax practices, advisory and consulting firms, family offices, and wealth management practices.
Common Challenges We See
Client security questionnaires piling up
Documentation sparse, stale, or missing; SRA overdue or incomplete, or assumed completed by MSP.
Partner anxiety about breach risk
Headlines about law firm and accounting firm breaches create urgency, but the path forward is unclear
Rising client expectations for confidentiality
Enterprise clients and regulated industries increasingly require their outside counsel and advisors to demonstrate formal security controls—not just promise discretion.
Cyberinsurance questionnaires exposing gaps
Renewals are harder; premiums are rising; the carrier wants documentation you don’t have
Small IT team without security expertise
They keep the lights on, but security strategy and compliance aren’t in their wheelhouse
Merger or expansion
Integrating another practice means combining IT systems and security approaches without clear leadership
You need to respond to client security questionnaires faster and more credibly
Your cyberinsurance renewal is driving you to document security practices
Partners are asking “what’s our security posture?” and you don’t have a clear answer
You’re growing through merger or expansion and need IT/security integration leadership
You want executive-level security oversight without hiring a full-time CISO
How We Help Professional Services Firms
Guardantix meets you where you are: responding to client questionnaires, building a formal security program, preparing for cyberinsurance renewal, or integrating a merger. Here’s how we typically engage.
Build a Pragmatic Security Program
We build security programs sized for professional services: not enterprise complexity, but credible governance that satisfies sophisticated clients and insurers. Through a vCISO or Hybrid vCISO/vCIO retainer, we provide:
- Policy development appropriate to your practice
- Risk register and ongoing risk management
- Vendor risk oversight for practice management systems, cloud services, and data storage
- Incident response planning and tabletop exercises
- Insurance renewal support and documentation
Accelerate Questionnaire Response
Security questionnaires are a tax on professional services firms. We develop questionnaire response libraries and a security overview document so your team can respond quickly and consistently. The Security & Compliance “Ready-for-Sales” Pack creates these assets in a structured engagement.
Integration and Transaction Support
For firms integrating acquisitions or preparing for sale, we conduct Transaction Readiness Reviews and provide integration leadership for IT and security workstreams.
Example Engagement Patterns
Regional Law Firm
A 60-attorney regional law firm faced mounting client security questionnaire demands and a cyberinsurance renewal with stricter requirements. Guardantix conducted a Security Posture Snapshot, identified critical gaps, and transitioned to a vCISO Professional retainer. We developed a questionnaire response library, supported the insurance renewal, and established annual tabletop exercises for the partnership.
Multi-Office Accounting Practice
A growing accounting firm expanding to new offices needed combined IT and security leadership during the integration. Guardantix provided Hybrid vCISO/vCIO services—standardizing security policies across offices, overseeing the MSP relationship, and developing client-facing security documentation.
Family Office Advisory
A boutique family office advisory handling ultra-high-net-worth clients needed to demonstrate robust security to sophisticated families. Guardantix built a formal security program, conducted vendor risk assessments on custodians and technology providers, and prepared materials for client due diligence requests.
Getting started for professional services
We typically start with a focused project—questionnaire response libraries, policy development, or a security posture assessment—then transition to ongoing vCISO support as your program matures. Let us know how we can help.
