Effective planning determines how fast you can recover from a disaster—or even whether your office will survive. And, as if the disaster du jour isn’t sufficiently anxiety-producing, keep in mind that during a disaster, natural or otherwise, a lawyer’s professional and ethical obligations are not suspended. So, it is incumbent on all of us to have a disaster plan in place before it hits the fan.
Fires, floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes are easy examples of disasters. Other, slower moving disasters can exact their pound of flesh as well, such as an employee’s (or your) illness and disability or a newly discovered theft or burglary. Even more mundane events, such as an employee termination gone awry, a computer malfunction, sudden staff changes, or even a hot water heater leak, can also wreak havoc on a law office.
My best disaster plan advice? Create a simple disaster plan and place it in several safe locations, both electronic and old-fashion hard copy, before it happens. A simple plan with easy access will increase the chances that you and/or staff will implement it. You cannot anticipate everything in a disaster plan, but a simple one will prevent a lot of heartache and increase your chances of business survival by giving you a recovery head start.
The best simple disaster plan prioritizes these two challenges: reestablishing communication and access to your client’s data.
Disaster Plan Elements
So, it’s Tuesday, and you are bebopping along, practicing law, and dispensing justice where you can. Life is good, or even if not, you are handling the familiar manageable chaos. Then, “it” happens—maybe suddenly, or maybe with a few days’ notice. Either way, you weren’t anticipating “it,” and of course, “it” is happening at the most inconvenient time. Now what? Implement your disaster plan and get your feet back on the ground. But that assumes you have a disaster plan. If you don’t, it’s easy to create one right now.
Here are the elements of a good, simple disaster plan:
“No Tech” Critical Info Disaster Binder
Create a “no tech” disaster binder with critical contact information. Review it once a year. It will be your lifeline in a power outage and/or impaired access to electronic data.
Not convinced? Think about this situation: Your area just got hit with a massive power outage. You’re out of cellphone juice and need to borrow someone else’s phone. Just how many telephone numbers do you know off the top of your head?
A “no tech” disaster binder can come to the rescue. The binder contains hard copies (yes, hard copies) of these items:
- Family member contact information.
- Staff contact information. Include alternative email addresses, personal and work cell numbers, emergency contact information, and a possible location where each may go if evacuating.
- Current list of active clients and opposing counsel contact information.
- State bar association contact information.
- Directory file list of active files.
- Trust accounts/other account numbers with banking contact information.
- Business and malpractice insurance policies with agent contact information.
- Photos and inventory of office equipment and furnishings. Consider following up with a video of your office environment and sending this video to the cloud.
- Passwords. List in a non-obvious manner passwords to firm social media, website, cloud subscription, bank, and any other work-related Internet accounts.
- Vendor and supplier contact information.
- Other items. Additional cellphone charger (a solar cell charger).
Keep the binder in a secure place in your office, with a copy in a safe place away from your office. Give a copy of the binder to a responsible person (preferably someone who does not live in the same general area as you or your office).
Make electronic copies of the binder, and then
- email it as an encrypted attachment to yourself and to someone whom you trust in an area away from you, and/or
- copy to an encrypted flash/thumb drive that you can keep in your wallet, and/or
- send to a secure cloud provider.
Identification of Possible Temporary Office Locations
Create a list of possible temporary office relocations in case a disaster requires a temporary move. Talk to colleagues nearby and in another part of your state about a standing reciprocal agreement that each could use the other’s office temporarily. Consider your home as a possible alternative place to work.
Inform your staff of these potential office relocations. This is especially important in large power outages when communications may be temporarily impossible. If locations are known ahead of time, your chances of quickly finding staff are optimized.
Money for a Disaster
In major disasters, local ATMs do not work, local banks are not open, and credit cards are useless. Have cash ready to sustain you for at least a month.
Establish with your bank an emergency line of credit that you can access any time after a disaster in case you need quick access to funds.
Adequate Insurance Coverage
Review your coverages and know how your policy will respond in a disaster. Does your policy cover building contents as well as the structure? Examine your need for business interruption coverage and extra expenses. Adjust coverages where needed. Review yearly.
Communication Plan
Communication is often the first to go in a disaster. Be ready with your default communication plan. After a major disaster, all communication avenues should be used early and often. Especially with an areawide disaster, do not assume that you know the communication issues for your target audience. So, be prepared to send information in different ways to increase the chances that your intended recipient will receive it.
Prepare a laminated, wallet-sized office contact card for your staff with vital key contact information. One side of the card has key staff member contact information (personal cell numbers and email addresses as well as work contact information), and the other side has court contact information and community emergency numbers. Have staff enter each other’s contact information into their cell phones as contacts.
Make sure that you or someone can:
- post critical firm information on your firm’s website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and/or other social media;
- contact by email or phone your clients, opposing counsel, and courts; and
- post a simple post-disaster message, informing clients and staff of alternative methods of reaching you.
If you are living in an area prone to large disasters, consider an old-school wired phone that connects directly to a dedicated phone line without the need for another source of power. Sometimes in extensive power outages, a traditional landline provides the only available outside communication method. In extremis situations, the Red Cross will have satellite phones and will allow you to place a call or two. Also, after a disaster, check your bar association website for communication tools. For example, the Louisiana State Bar Association will set up after hurricanes an open forum where individuals can post temporary location information and contact information. Other local bar associations respond similarly in a disaster.