Secure Password Sharing in a Law Firm

Founded in 1992, Dr. Metschkoll GmbH is a law firm specializing in legal and tax consulting, located close to Munich, Germany. With 20 employees and serving almost 600 clients - mainly companies - it offers integrated advisory services from legal, tax, and economic perspectives with a heartfelt approach to client relationships.

In the dynamic and complex field of legal and tax consulting, Dr. Metschkoll faces the critical task of managing sensitive client information and internal resources efficiently and securely. The firm's need for password sharing emerges from its integrated approach to consulting, where team members across legal, tax, and economic departments must access shared digital tools and databases. While passwords play a rather subordinate role in the firm, as the majority of access is restricted via smartcards, the need to store passwords securely and share them between employees arises again and again in individual cases. This access is essential for maintaining the seamless flow of information, ensuring that client advisories are informed, timely, and compliant with the latest privacy, legal and fiscal regulations.

Before adopting Passbolt for the whole team three years ago, Dr. Metschkoll relied on rudimentary methods to store and share passwords, which were secure, but not consistent, ineffective and in numerous systems. The firm needed a solution that would not only securely store and share passwords among employees, but also meet the firm's requirement to host IT systems locally and use open source software wherever possible.

Passbolt emerged as the ideal solution for Dr. Metschkoll, offering a self-hosted, open-source password manager that perfectly matched the firm's strategic requirements. With its ability to facilitate secure password sharing and storage, Passbolt provided the necessary tools to address the firm's operational challenges. It allowed for local hosting and aligned with the firm's open-source philosophy.

Thanks to the comprehensive public technical documentation, the IT team at Dr. Metschkoll successfully taught themselves how to install, configure, and maintain Passbolt. They have been using it stably and flawlessly in their operations for the past three years.

Implementing Passbolt significantly secured and streamlined Dr. Metschkoll's collaborative approach to password management. The law firm benefited from:

• A centralized password storage system, eliminating the need for insecure password lists.
• Ability to store TOTP secrets and generate the corresponding tokens without the need to use apps on employees’ private smartphones.
• The ability to easily share passwords within the firm, enhancing team collaboration.
• Reduced dependency on individual password management solutions, streamlining operations.
• Increased productivity security measures, including the provision for local copies of critical data, ensuring business continuity.
• By running Passbolt on-premises, the team at Dr. Metschkoll enjoys full control over their data, ensuring utmost security and privacy.

Dr. Metschkoll's successful integration of Passbolt into their daily operations underscores the significant benefits of adopting open-source, self-hosted solutions for password collaboration management in the legal and tax consulting industry where data protection is paramount.