Consider YouSENDit for sending large files

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Ever have someone say, “I’ll e-mail you my pictures”? Then they end up sending you a series of e-mails, because the file size of the attachment(s) is so large that it exceeds what their e-mail provider will allow? Or it can be sent, but it’s a painfully slow download, especially if you don’t have a lightning-fast Internet connection.

This is when YouSENDit.com can come in handy. It’s a file transfer service — one of several dozen on the Web. If your firm has an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server, you don’t need this, but there are many solos and small firms out there who might want to give this, or other similar services, a try.

YouSENDit gives away basic service and charges for premium service. All you do is register with YouSENDit, and a confirmation e-mail is sent to you. Once you click on the link in the e-mail you can begin transferring your big files, all at once, for free.

I experimented by zipping a file of JPEG files from a recent vacation of approximately 99 MB in size to 60 MB; I zipped them because JPEG files don’t compress. Then I wrote in the e-mail addresses of the recipients and myself, just to test it. Away it went, uploading to YouSENDit. It took about an hour, but that’s because the upload speed for my Internet connection is much slower than the download speed.

When I received an e-mail from YouSENDit, I saw my own message, clicked on the link to the site, and downloaded the JPEGs in a few minutes. It was that easy.

Of course, a perpetual and serious concern for lawyers is, is the service secure? YouSENDit has a lengthy page on its site detailing its “Security Overview” which states that it uses encryption, which I believe is the magic word for ensuring that parties other than you and your recipient cannot intercept your documents.

As for the concern that you’ve breached the duty of confidentiality just by involving a third party as a transmitter of information, my opinion is that a good-faith argument could be made to the Office of Lawyer Regulation that these services are no different that the U.S. Postal Service or a courier service, in that they, too, could access your information if they really tried.

There’s also some authority available to offer attorneys some comfort. Massachusetts State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 05-04 states that, “A law firm may provide a third-party software vendor with access to confidential client information stored on the firm’s computer system for the purpose of allowing the vendor to support and maintain a computer software application…

“However, the law firm must make reasonable efforts to ensure that the conduct of the software vendor (or any other independent service provider that the firm utilizes) is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer[s], including the obligation to protect confidential client information.”

Moreover, some FTP services appear to be more security-conscious than others. For example, I’ve used SendShack.com to send the same information, and found it easy-to-use as well. But that service doesn’t discuss security on its Web site, as YouSENDit does. I’d err on the side of caution and go with the latter.

Attorney Daniel J. Krause, of Krause Law Offices LLC in Oregon is a believer, too. He says he uses YouSENDit often for recipients whose inboxes don’t allow them to receive files larger than 2 MB.

He urged me to try the site’s many plug-ins. Both YouSENDit Express and the YouSENDit Add-in for Microsoft Office can be downloaded in about one minute. Now when I’m in Word, I can click on the “Mailings” tab and the “Send it by YouSENDit” icon appears, so I don’t even have to open my browser and go to the site. If you’re worried about metadata, you should check out the plug-in for Adobe Acrobat, too.

The lone downside to YouSENDit that I was able to discover, albeit a minor one, is that it sends me unwanted e-mails every now and again. I guess that’s the price you pay to get something for nothing.