How Qpher works for law firms
How Qpher protects client files, and how its signatures and controls relate to ESIGN, UETA and ABA Model Rule 1.6(c). Information, not legal advice.
How Qpher protects client files
- In Qpher Vault, each document is encrypted on your device or in your browser before it is uploaded. Qpher implements the NIST FIPS 203, 204 and 205 post-quantum standards (what is and is not validated: Compliance). - You can share a document with any email address. Your client opens it in the browser with a one-time code sent to their email: no app to install, no password to set. - Qpher lets a document be downloaded only by its owner and the people it is shared with. Each document has an access log that records who downloaded it, and when. - A document can carry an ML-DSA signature made with your firm's key, and a client you share it with can counter-sign it. Verified through Qpher, a signature shows that the document has not changed since it was signed, as long as the signing key has not been archived. - An organization owner or admin can require every member to use multi-factor authentication, and sensitive actions ask the user to confirm again. - On a paid plan, your organization's Qpher Console audit log is hash-chained and can be exported and verified. - Private keys are generated and used only inside Qpher's isolated key service and are never exported. - Data is stored in the United States on Google Cloud and in Cloudflare's eastern North America region.
Electronic signatures
A Qpher signature is a cryptographic signature: an ML-DSA signature made with your firm's private key inside Qpher's isolated key service. Verified through Qpher, it shows that the document has not changed since it was signed with that key. It identifies your firm's key, not the individual member who signed; the document's activity records which member signed it. The federal ESIGN Act (15 U.S.C. § 7001 et seq.) and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), adopted with variations by nearly every state (New York instead has its own Electronic Signatures and Records Act), address when an electronic signature or record meets a legal requirement. Whether a signature is effective under them depends on things Qpher does not capture or decide, such as the parties' agreement to conduct the transaction electronically, each party's intent to sign, any required consumer consent and disclosures, and record retention. Both laws also exclude "rules of law governing the creation and execution of wills, codicils, or testamentary trusts" (15 U.S.C. § 7003(a)(1); UETA § 3(b)(1)). Qpher is not a signing service for those documents, and a Qpher signature is not offered as one. Qpher does not provide notarization, remote online notarization, witnessing or identity proofing; documents that require them are outside what a Qpher signature does.
Your duty of confidentiality
ABA Model Rule 1.6(c) provides that a lawyer shall "make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client." Comment [18] lists factors for judging reasonableness, including the sensitivity of the information, the likelihood of disclosure if additional safeguards are not employed, the cost and difficulty of employing them, and the extent to which they adversely affect the lawyer's ability to represent clients. ABA Formal Opinion 477R, Securing Communication of Protected Client Information (May 2017), discusses these questions for electronic communications. How Qpher's controls relate to that duty — facts about the controls, not a conclusion that they are reasonable for your matters: - Unauthorized access: documents are encrypted on your device or in your browser; Qpher lets a document be downloaded only by its owner and the people it is shared with; an organization can require multi-factor authentication; private keys stay in an isolated key service. - Inadvertent disclosure: you choose each recipient by email address and can revoke a share. Revoking stops new downloads; a copy already saved stays with whoever saved it. - Knowing what happened: each document's access log records who downloaded it, and when. On a paid plan, your organization's Qpher Console audit log is hash-chained and can be exported and verified. States adopt their own versions of Rule 1.6 and issue their own ethics opinions. Check the rule that applies to you.
What Qpher does not do
Qpher is not zero-knowledge: it can see file names, sizes, tag names and who a document is shared with, and its key service holds the keys that unwrap document keys. Revoking a share stops new downloads, but it cannot recall a copy already saved. Qpher is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.