PC Law Remote Access for Law Firms

Why PC Law remote access carries extra weight

PC Law manages trust accounting and billing, financial records tied directly to a firm's Law Society obligations. Remote access to this system is not simply a convenience feature, it is an extension of the firm's financial controls, and it needs to be designed with that responsibility in mind rather than treated the same as remote access to general office files.

Choosing between VPN and published desktop

• VPN connection to the firm's network: works well for PC Law's relatively lightweight data transfer compared to document-heavy applications, provided the connection is properly secured
• Published desktop or remote session: keeps the application and data entirely on infrastructure inside the firm, with only the screen image sent to the remote device, offering an additional layer of separation for sensitive financial data
• Either approach can work well for PC Law specifically, since its data transfer needs are lighter than a document-heavy application like Primafact, but the security configuration matters more than the specific method chosen

Required security controls for PC Law remote access

• Multi-factor authentication enforced on every remote connection without exception
• Remote devices enrolled in endpoint protection and kept current on security updates
• Access limited to what each remote user's role actually requires within PC Law
• Session timeouts so an unattended remote session does not remain open indefinitely
• Remote access activity logged and reviewed periodically as part of ongoing cybersecurity practice

Setting up remote access for billing and accounting staff

Bookkeepers and billing staff working remotely often need to print trust cheques or generate invoices from home, which adds a wrinkle that lawyers using Primafact remotely typically do not face. A published-desktop approach handles this more cleanly, since local printers connected to the remote session can be mapped through to the firm's network printers without routing sensitive financial data directly to an unmanaged home printer configuration.

Firms should also confirm that any locally saved reports or exported files from a remote PC Law session are handled according to the firm's data retention and confidentiality policies, rather than left sitting on a personal device.

Coordinating with lawyers who also need Primafact remotely

In most firms, the same infrastructure decision, VPN versus published desktop, should apply consistently across both PC Law and Primafact rather than running two different remote access systems with different security postures. See our guide to Primafact remote access and the broader picture in running Primafact and PC Law together for how to design one remote access approach that serves the whole firm.

Testing remote access before staff depend on it

Remote access should be tested with real billing and trust accounting tasks, not just a login check, before staff are told to rely on it for a genuine work-from-home day. A test that stops at successful login can miss printing issues, permission gaps, or performance problems that only appear when someone actually tries to process a trust transaction remotely.

Offboarding and access review discipline

Remote access to trust accounting software should be reviewed and revoked immediately when a staff member leaves the firm, with no gap between departure and access removal. This should be documented as a formal step in the firm's offboarding process, tied into the firm's backup and disaster recovery and overall managed IT services planning, rather than left as an informal task someone remembers to do eventually.

Setting up and validating PC Law remote access

1. Decide on VPN or published-desktop approach consistently across the firm.
2. Configure multi-factor authentication for every remote user before granting access.
3. Set role-based permissions matching each remote user's actual job function.
4. Test with a real billing entry and, if applicable, a real trust cheque print.
5. Document the setup process for onboarding future remote staff.
6. Review access quarterly and immediately upon any staff departure.

Frequently asked questions