Case Study
Top-tier law firm achieves continuous audit readiness across four concurrent compliance frameworks
How CyberPulse helped one of Australia’s largest law firms move from annual compliance cycles to continuous assurance, with AI-augmented GRC delivery across ISO 27001, CPS 234, SOC 2 and the ASD Essential Eight.
project snapshot
INDUSTRY
Legal Services
ORGANIZATION SIZE
1,000+ staff
LOCATION
Sydney, NSW
ENGAGEMENT
Ongoing
FRAMEWORKS
ISO 27001, CPS 234, SOC 2, Essential Eight
The Challenge
A mature programme, ready to go further
MinterEllison is one of Australia’s Big Six law firms, with a long-standing, certified compliance programme across multiple frameworks. As legal advisors to financial institutions, listed companies and government agencies, their obligations are serious and their standards are high. This was not an organisation that needed rescuing. It was an organisation that had invested in building a strong foundation and chose to take it to world class.
Improving a mature programme is genuinely harder than building a new one. Every change has to work within existing certified frameworks, with existing teams, and without disrupting certifications that clients and regulators depend on. What MinterEllison needed was a partner with both the cybersecurity depth and the compliance breadth to take what they had built and make it smarter, faster and more secure.
Key priorities for the engagement included:
- Shifting from reactive, audit-driven compliance cycles to continuous audit readiness across all frameworks as a default state
- Eliminating the per-framework evidence overhead that compounds effort across every certification cycle
- Automating the operational burden of evidence collection, questionnaire responses and vendor risk management
- Strengthening actual security posture, not just satisfying framework requirements on paper
- Building a programme with the capacity to take on new certification frameworks ahead of client and regulatory triggers
The Solution
Security-first compliance, AI-augmented and continuously monitored
CyberPulse delivered a managed compliance service spanning five concurrent frameworks, transforming a per-framework manual evidence process into a unified, automated architecture with AI augmentation running through every part of the programme.
Phase 1: Assess and Consolidate
CyberPulse mapped MinterEllison’s existing control environment across all four frameworks, rationalised the policy stack and replaced the per-framework evidence model with a shared evidence architecture. A single piece of evidence is now collected once, tagged to all applicable controls across all frameworks and maintained in one place. Industry analysis puts the effort saving from this structural change at 40 to 60 percent of total compliance effort across multi-framework programmes.
Phase 2: Automate and Augment
Manual email chains for evidence collection were replaced with automated workflows that send reminders at the right points in the compliance calendar and route evidence directly into the platform for AI-assisted review. AI augmentation was extended across vendor risk triage, inbound questionnaire responses and control monitoring. The result was a programme that runs continuously without the annual preparation scramble.
Phase 3: Uplift and Operationalise
CyberPulse delivered a formal ISO 27001 and SOC 2 end-to-end audit engagements, CPS 234 Audit and a Essential Eight maturity assessment and uplift programme. Inbound security questionnaire responses were automated against live platform data, reducing completion effort by approximately 90 percent. Ongoing joint audit co-delivery and platform optimisation ensure the programme continues to mature.
The Results
Continuous assurance, measurably better security and a programme built to scale
90%
Reduction in inbound security questionnaire completion effort, with source-verified outputs drawn from live platform data
40-60%
Reduction in total compliance effort from the shared evidence model, across all five concurrent frameworks
82%
Reduction in audit preparation time with properly operationalised GRC automation (IDC, January 2025)
4
Concurrent compliance frameworks managed in a single shared evidence architecture with live audit readiness across all of them
ML2
ASD Essential Eight Maturity Level 2 achieved across all eight controls, consistent with ASD guidance for the legal sector
0
Major findings across all audit cycles, with controls approaching SLA thresholds flagged and tracked before they become issues
“The managed service model delivers that, while freeing my team from the bulk of compliance coordination effort and lifting the quality of both controls and supporting evidence. CyberPulse has also selected a platform that lets us further develop adjacent capabilities under the same managed service scope rather than as separate procurements. The outcome is a programme with the capacity to mature further and to take on new certification frameworks proactively, ahead of client and regulatory triggers.”
Managed Compliance Service
AI-Augmented GRC
Continuous Compliance
Essential Eight Uplift
ISO 27001
CPS 234
SOC 2 Type II
Vendor Risk Management
Questionnaire Automation
Policy Rationalisation
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