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Will your law office be ready when ‘What if?’ becomes ‘What now?!’

Law Office Management Assistance Service Regular News

Hurricane season runs through November 30

Beginning in 2000, over 50 tropical storms and hurricanes have made landfall in Florida. During the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, five major hurricanes made landfall in Florida. And, of the 10 deadliest hurricanes to hit the U.S. mainland in recorded history, five struck in Florida.

Hurricane Fran 2006 Each year, experts try to predict how many storms will make landfall, even though we know it takes only one terrible storm to destroy lives and livelihoods.

Will your office be prepared this year?

Would your office survive a hurricane? You’ve heard the old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” When it comes to hurricanes, prevention through preparedness will again prove this homily to be true. Conversely, thinking “it could never happen to me” and being caught off guard can have devastating consequences and may bring your law firm to its knees.

Many lawyers in Florida and in other states impacted by severe storms say it takes years to recover from the emotional toll and economic impact of a direct strike. Many had disaster plans. Many did not. Few had a plan to deal with a disaster the size of hurricanes Andrew or Katrina. Through hindsight and lessons learned, we can, and should, develop plans designed to mitigate the effects of hurricanes, regardless of how large.

Communications
The first concern after any disaster is to locate and ensure the safety of all family and employees. If Florida’s governor ordered a mass evacuation, do you know where the people in your office are likely to head? You should! The key to normalizing office operations after a disaster is the ability to make contact with key employees and learn their situation or availability. No employee will concentrate on the office until they know their family and home are safe.

One of the first responsibilities of a firm’s disaster management team is to contact all employees. This task will be easier if you have recorded the intended evacuation locations of everyone in the office. In addition to evacuation locations, up-to-date directories with employees’ home addresses should also include home numbers, cell phone numbers, and email addresses. These directories should routinely be distributed to your key office personnel. From previous disasters, we’ve learned that cell phone communications may be reestablished first. Even then, communication may be difficult. However, we’ve learned that texting traffic often gets through when regular cell phone service is problematic. If you don’t know how to text, ask any teenager! Another procedure is to establish a telephone notification tree which acts as a calling chain as a method to notify every firm employee of emergency information on weekends or after hours. That is, one person calls four people, those four people call four more people and so on.

Telephones and Disaster Kits
Disaster experts recommend establishing a mutual aid pact with a law firm or other business in some distant city unlikely to be impacted by the same disaster. This “reciprocal firm’s” telephone number should be listed as an emergency contact point to keep everyone posted on the status of the firm, and as a rally point to establish contact with each other. Such an arrangement will, if the disaster necessitates a long-term office closing, also become a useful tool for attorneys to stay in touch with their clients.

Digital phone systems require electrical power, and most cease to function immediately without electricity or once the battery runs down. We have noticed a new trend of placing your phone service with a cable TV provider. In the event of a cable outage, telephone service is also lost. All central office stations now have battery backup. So, older analog phones may operate when digital phones will not. Analog phones operate not on electrical power, but on low-level power from the telephone network. LOMAS recommends including an analog telephone line in your disaster preparedness plans and an analog phone set in your disaster preparedness kit.

Another technology of value is the walkie-talkie. Some of today’s versions have a viable communication range of over 15 miles. Add several walkie-talkies to your kit for use by key personnel as an additional strategy to facilitate communication during a disaster. Give them to key personnel before the disaster, along with frequencies or channels to be used and other emergency procedures.

Business Continuation
Once you are assured of all employees’ personal safety, including your own, your next concern is reestablishing office operations even if on a limited basis.

A well-crafted disaster recovery plan will focus on business continuation as the second step. Of critical importance is re-establishing communication with clients. Clients need to know you are still in business and where or how they can contact you. Obviously, until Internet or telephone service is re-established, your communication options are limited. One excellent way to facilitate communication is to place some form of signage at the office location, such as, “We’re down but not out, contact us by….” If possible, contact your webmaster and update your webpage with information regarding the firm’s situation, and the date you expect to return to normal operations.

As part of your preparations, inventory the technology equipment available at partners’ and associates’ homes. Working from home on a limited basis may be the best option for keeping the practice going. Particularly note those who have a power generator at home. Knowing who has the ability to communicate and/or produce work from home will go a long way in restoring operations. It’s not unusual for individuals to have a home fax, printer, computer, adding machine, desk, chairs, portable computers, smart phone, etc., all of which can be patched together to make up a temporary office.

After the disaster, it may be necessary to relocate to temporary office space during the time the office is being repaired or put off limits by local emergency responders. After a disaster, local authorities may cordon off whole streets and restrict access. Temporary space might be in a partner’s garage or shared space in another law office. Some deciding factors may be who has power, telephone, or Internet connections. Whatever situation you arrange, it’s important to have some private area available for conversing with clients.

Past hurricanes have demonstrated that Florida lawyers are extremely generous and gracious in extending offers of assistance, including sharing their own limited space. Your firm’s disaster plan should include arrangements for temporary space.

Computer Data
A well-designed computer backup system should be part of your every day normal operations. Data backups should always be stored off premises. These backups become a critical part of your disaster recovery and business continuity effort. Unfortunately, none of us have the luxury of knowing exactly where or when a disaster will strike, so there is some potential that your backup, as well as your originals, will be lost if both your home and office are destroyed. Many firms are opting for web-based backups onto ASP servers located in remote regions out of harm’s way. While they are a reliable and secure alternative, a speedy recovery could be hindered by your limited access to the Internet to download your data. Many ASP vendors will also provide CDs or DVDs of your data to facilitate recovery. Additionally, at your firm, you can scan calendars, accounting data, insurance policies, and other selected data to CDs. It is also important that you have your original software discs stored in a safe location. Typically, if a PC or server hard drive fails or is destroyed, the rebuilding of the replacement computer is a time-consuming process of reinstallation of both the operating system and every software program. Simply using a normal backup of the operating system and program system files won’t give you a restored system.

Instead, use back-up software to create an “image” of the functional hard drive and save it off-site. A file which when used to restore the drive will result in an operable computer as soon as the restore process is complete. No additional software reinstalls are necessary. It’s a one-step process. Restore the new hard drive using the image file and boot the machine. Then, restore your data using the most current data backup.

Lastly, consider incorporating into your plan the physical relocation of the server(s) to a safe area such as your reciprocal firm in another state. With advance warning, a trusted staff member could transport the server out of harm’s way.

Paper Files
Water is, of course, an enemy of paper. As part of preparation planning, don’t forget that plastic garbage bags are your friend. Files, as well as computers, printers, servers, telephones, and other equipment can easily be stored in construction-grade plastic garbage bags and sealed with duct tape. Plans should include moving valuable files and equipment out of offices with windows into interior offices or hallways. Valuable equipment or papers should be taken home or placed on the tallest file cabinet or closet shelf. Don’t leave them on the floor. Before moving equipment and files, take pictures of everything in your office. Those pictures will be invaluable for insurance claims.

After a flood or hurricane, if you do have waterlogged paper files, move quickly to deal with the issue. If possible, freeze any waterlogged documents until you can hire experts to deal with them. Move quickly because mildew happens fast in Florida’s high humidity, and many companies won’t work with damp, moldy paper because of the health hazards.

Conclusion
While no amount of planning can totally eliminate all of the perils we face in a disaster, sound planning can help to mitigate the personal and business costs. Hurricane disaster preparation and recovery is not a one-time project — it is an on-going process, and one that must be annually tested, updated, and tested again. Despite what history tells us to do, some firms continue to ignore the perils of hurricanes and other disasters by not having a documented disaster management and business continuation plan.

For additional information on hurricane and disaster recovery, refer to The Florida Bar’s Law Office Management Assistance Service (LOMAS) home page.

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