I was talking to a lawyer recently—sharp guy, been through the wringer with business litigation. 

I asked him, “How do you avoid getting sued?” 

He didn’t even blink. 

“You don’t.” 

“If you’re running a business long enough, it’s not a matter of if—it’s a matter of when.” 

That stuck with me. So I went digging. 

There are 33.2 million businesses in the U.S. 

And over 40 million lawsuits filed each year. 

Roughly 473,000 of those make it all the way to federal court. 

Do the math. If you’re running an MSP, the odds are lined up against you. 

But let’s get real—it’s not just you at risk. 

You’re playing the legal liability game on multiple fronts. 

Legal Threat #1: Your MSP 

You’re on the front lines. If one of your clients gets hit with ransomware, loses data, or finds themselves on the receiving end of a cyber insurance denial, guess what happens? 

They’re not looking inward. 

They’re not blaming the CFO who declined MFA. 

They’re not pointing fingers at the employee who clicked the phishing link. 

They’re coming for you. 

Even if you warned them. 

Even if they didn’t follow your advice. 

Even if the breach had nothing to do with your stack. 

Because you’re the IT provider. The security “expert.” 

And that means you get the demand letter or the subpoena. 

Worse—so does your insurance company. And when they get dragged into it, they’ll start looking for ways to deny coverage. “Failure to enforce,” “failure to advise,” “failure to prove…” 

If you don’t have documentation that shows what you recommended, what the client declined, and what risks were accepted—you’re standing in front of a firing squad with no armor. 

Legal Threat #2: Your Clients 

Here’s where it gets even messier. 

Let’s say your client doesn’t get sued. But their client does. Or their vendor does. And that vendor’s legal team wants someone to blame for the supply chain breach that exposed sensitive data. 

Who gets caught in the middle? 

Your client. 

And who was responsible for your client’s security posture? 

You. 

Now you’re not just worried about your MSP getting sued—you’re worried about your clients getting sued in a way that boomerangs back to you. 

Every system you touch, every tool you implement, every security recommendation you make (or don’t) becomes a potential liability. 

And don’t think your client is going to protect you when they’re fighting to save their own business. They’ll do what every lawyer tells them to: shift the blame, defer the responsibility, and point to the provider. 

You. 

Why Is This Happening? 

Because cyber risk isn’t just technical anymore. It’s legal. 

And when the legal world gets involved, intentions don’t matter. 

Only evidence does. 

When something goes sideways—when an investigation starts, when a regulator asks for documentation, when a plaintiff lawyer starts building their case—the question isn’t, “Did you try?” 

It’s “Can you prove you did everything right?” 

And if the best you’ve got is an email that says, “You really should enable MFA,” you’re already in trouble. 

The Only Way Out? Documentation That Draws a Straight Line 

You need a cyber liability program. Not just to protect your clients—but to protect yourself. 

You need: 

  • Risk Acceptance documents that show exactly what the client declined
  • Quarterly Security Briefings that document every major recommendation
  • Incident Response Plans that prove you had a system in place
  • Evidence collection baked into your operations

Because if you can show, clearly and quickly, that your work aligns with a standard of care—then you’re not the easy target anymore. 

You’re the one with your act together. 

And that changes the legal game completely. 

The Lawsuit Is Posturing. So Should Be Your Defense. 

The lawyer I talked to said their job is to make you look like a disaster. 

They’ll come at you with a list of “failures.” 

Your job is to respond—fast and with precision. 

If you stumble, if it takes weeks, if you pull together a couple of emails and a vague policy? 

They’ll smell weakness. 

They’ll go harder. 

 But if you drop a clean, structured report that maps to your security stack, shows client decisions, and proves compliance? 

That’s posture. 

That’s strength. 

And that’s what makes a plaintiff attorney pack up and move on. 

Are You Actually Ready? 

If a client got breached tomorrow, and the finger pointed at you… 

Could you respond within 24 hours with: 

  • Risk evidence?
  • Security recommendations?
  • Client refusal documentation?
  • Incident response logs?

If the answer is “maybe,” or “not really,” or “we’d have to dig through emails”… then you’re not ready. 

You need to be. Because lawsuits don’t come with a calendar invite. 

They show up when you least expect them. 

Let’s change that. Let’s get your cyber liability program in place. We’ll start with an assessment to see where you stand. 

Schedule your Cyber Liability Assessment now

Because in today’s legal landscape, MSPs don’t get to “hope for the best.” 

They either prove they’re secure—or they pay for the failure.