It’s 4:47 PM on a Friday. You’re trying to close a corporate transaction, and opposing counsel needs three years of board minutes, shareholder agreements, and financial statements. You attach what you can to an email, hit send, and immediately get the bounce-back: “Message size exceeds maximum allowed.”
You try again with a file-sharing link. Then another email with the password. By the time everything’s sent, it’s past 6 PM, you’ve created a compliance headache, and you’re not entirely sure what’s been shared or with whom.
Email has been the default for legal document sharing for decades, but it was never designed for the volume, sensitivity, or complexity of modern legal work. The hidden costs of this approach affect deal timelines, client relationships, and professional indemnity risk.
The Real Cost of Email-Based Sharing
Security vulnerabilities
Email is fundamentally insecure. Every message passes through multiple servers, often across jurisdictions, and sits in recipients’ inboxes indefinitely. When you email a document:
- You lose control the moment you hit send
- Recipients can forward it without your knowledge
- Attachments sit in multiple servers, often unencrypted at rest
- There’s no reliable way to revoke access
- Providers may be compelled to hand over data under legal frameworks
For law firms handling client confidential information, commercial secrets, or personal data, these vulnerabilities create genuine professional liability. Email alone doesn’t meet the SRA’s expectations for robust information security.
Version control chaos
Email threads with attachments named “Final_v3,” “Final_v3_revised,” and “Final_ACTUAL_final” are all too common. In multi-party transactions:
- Stakeholders work from different versions
- Comments may be missed
- Outdated information risks incorrect advice
- Hours are wasted reconciling versions
Version chaos isn’t just inconvenient—it’s dangerous in M&A or multi-party litigation.
Time drain on fee earners
Email-based document management costs time:
- Finding threads
- Downloading, renaming, and organizing files
- Re-sending documents
- Answering “Where’s the file?” questions
- Reconciling who has access
- Manually creating document indexes
For a mid-level associate billing £300 per hour, 30 minutes daily on this work costs £75. Over a year, that’s nearly £20,000 per fee earner. For 20 fee earners, that’s £400,000 annually—excluding lost opportunities from slow deals.
Poor client experience
Clients expect:
- Immediate access to documents
- Clear visibility of shared vs. outstanding items
- Professional, branded experiences
- Confidence in information security
Email delivers none of this, leading to confusion, fragmented communication, and security concerns. In competitive markets, client experience is a differentiator.
Compliance and audit gaps
Legal work demands audit trails: who accessed which documents, when, and what was shared. Email provides almost none of this. You may know when you sent something but have no visibility into:
- Who opened it
- Who it was forwarded to
- How long documents were reviewed
- Whether they were downloaded or printed
Without proper records, disputes or regulatory reviews become problematic.
What Modern Legal Teams Are Doing Instead
Virtual data rooms (VDRs) provide secure, centralised repositories for legal documents, designed for complex transactions.
Centralised, secure repositories
- One source of truth for all parties
- Intuitive folder structures by category, transaction stage, or matter
- Branded rooms for a professional client experience
Granular access control
- Control who sees each document
- Set view-only or edit permissions
- Restrict sensitive documents to select individuals
- Revoke access instantly
Complete audit trails
- Track every access, download, print, and search
- Monitor document changes and version history
- Provide visibility for compliance, dispute resolution, and deal intelligence
Efficient collaboration tools
- Q&A functionality to replace email threads
- Redaction tools for PII and GDPR compliance
- Auto-generated document indexes and closing bibles
- Secure messaging within the platform
Time savings
Uploading entire folders, managing versions, and sending links replaces hours of email coordination. Mid-market M&A transactions report saving 20-30 hours per deal—£6,000–£9,000 in recovered billable time.
Ready to see how purpose-built legal data rooms can transform your practice? Start a free trial or book a demo to see Projectfusion in action with real legal workflows.