15/10/2026
A discovery deadline is looming. Your paralegal gets an email that looks like it's from opposing counsel's firm, chasing an "updated" document production, "as discussed," with a link to submit files directly.
It's not from opposing counsel. It's a lookalike domain, one character off from the real one.
If those files go out, you're not just looking at a data breach. You're looking at privileged material, in a matter still before the court, sent straight to the other side or to whoever's actually running the scam.
This is the quieter cousin of trust account fraud. It doesn't always show up as a headline. But for a legal practice, an unauthorised disclosure of privileged or confidential material carries its own reporting obligations, and its own reputational cost, especially if it happens mid-litigation.
Three checks that catch this before it becomes a problem: ✅ Verify any request for document production or file sharing via a known phone number, never the one in the email
✅ Lock down who in your practice can action external document requests, and require sign-off for anything involving discovery or disclosure
✅ Check the sending domain character by character, lookalike domains are built to be skimmed past, not caught
We help Perth and Mandurah legal practices build these checks into daily workflow, not as an extra step, but as how the system already works.
If your team handles discovery requests over email without a verification step, that's worth a conversation before it's tested by someone outside your firm.
