A Backup Proposal for Those Who Know That They Aren’t Doing Backup Well
By Jim Calloway, Director, OBA Management Assistance Program

Dear OBA-MAP:
OK, we have to admit it. We’re not really comfortable with our backup procedures. Mostly, we are not comfortable because we don’t back up very often and when we do, we just burn some CDs. We’re not even sure we know what to back up. We had one of those tape backup thingies, but the tapes broke and the local stores don’t carry the tapes anymore. But with all of the natural disasters we’ve seen this year, we think we need to do a better job of making sure we don’t lose our forms and briefs. We’re a small firm with no server and the IT guy we used to use graduated from high school and went on to college on the West Coast. Can you help?

Backup Bozo

Dear Backup:
No problem. Let’s outline a simple doable backup system you can implement this week. Anyone who uses a computer can use this plan. Even though this simple system may be adequate, we’ll also have to tell you some of the reasons why it falls far short of perfection.

OBA-MAP

This month I am going to outline a plan for backing up your data using only the tools you’re likely to have: a CD-ROM burner, some blank CDs and the software already installed on your system. Then I have to follow up by explaining its shortcomings.

I have to note that I like to write columns that are interesting and easy to read. Lists of the steps required to implement new processes on your computer system may not make for the most interesting reading. Just like a lawyer drafting a contract or other legal document, the quest for an absolutely exhaustive treatment of all contingencies can result in cumbersome sentences with many sub-clauses, definitions and exceptions. So try to bear with me, even if you know you have the world’s greatest backup system in place. This article may be pointless for larger firm lawyers whose IT department takes care of these matters. (On the other hand, it might provide a great blueprint for backing up your files on your home computer system, including files that could not be replaced like your family’s digital pictures.) You can also find some tips, keyboard shortcuts, and other observations and diversions included here.

But the theory presented here is very simple. If you are not doing any backup, it is better to back up just your data than to do no backup at all. Experts will tell you why you need a complete backup. But if you did lose everything on your hard drive, you could replace software applications (even if you had to repurchase them). Attempting to recreate all of your documents, forms, client billing records, calendar entries and other data could be a crushing proposition. Let’s at least guard against that danger—right now!

This article is designed to serve as your law office data backup plan. You can sit down with your staff and distribute some copies of this article this week. Note any variations from the steps outlined in this article that you want implemented in your office such as whether you want certain things done weekly or monthly.

First, you need the hardware and supplies. We assume you have a CD burner but, if not, have one of the local techs (or most any high school student) install one for you in your PC. You will need to install one in each of your PCs if they are not networked. This step is cheap and easy. Faster is better as far as the CD burners, but if you’ve never had a CD burner before, they will all seem fairly fast.

Buy blank CDs in bulk. Go to your local “big box” store and buy 50 or 100 or more CDs. That should get you to a decent price level. You can buy a large quantity of blank CDs on a spindle. But, note that after these CD-ROMs contain your “mission critical” data, you will not want them rubbing against other CDs on a spindle. So you need to purchase a CD storage case, or plastic sleeves or jewel boxes for permanent storage. It might be more simple to spend a bit more and buy blank CDs in their individual jewel boxes. You also should buy a couple of Sharpie markers or markers made specifically for writing on CDs. A key component of keeping backup simple is writing the identification label or contents right on the CDs the moment you take them out of the machine. (An attendee at a CLE program told me that he also uses a Sharpie marker to write the device name on every new power cord or cable he obtains.)

Then we ask you to start by creating a few new folders on your drive C. We want to create some recognizable folders to store your data for easy backup. If you have other ways you use to store client documents and information, you may have to modify this plan to meet your needs or you may have to modify your current processes to meet this plan.

Open Windows Explorer (use the keyboard shortcut of Windows key plus the E key) and go to drive C. Right click there and create a new folder named 4thQuarter2005. Right click on the new folder and select “send to desktop (create shortcut).” Repeat the creation of new folders for 1stQuarter2006 to 4thQuarter2006. You can wait on creating the desktop shortcuts for these until the time for using those folders rolls around so your desktop won’t be so cluttered or you can do them all now. Create one more new folder named 2005 and make a desktop shortcut for it.

(Now if you’ve been keeping your word processing documents in folders with the clients’ names, just move them all under the 4thQuarter2005 folder. It will be very easy to get to the new shortcuts. The keyboard shortcut Windows key + D will clear everything and reveal your desktop, where you can click on the shortcut to the folder.)

Now here’s the theory. Henceforth, you want to save all of your word processing documents under the 4thQuarter2005 folder throughout the end of this year. At the end of each month in the quarter, you burn the entire contents of that folder onto a CD (or more than one if you have that many documents). You take one copy of that CD home and keep one copy in the office. You should do this backup more frequently (e.g. every week). But you have to do it once a month.

(While you are at this project, you probably want to burn duplicate sets of CDs of your documents as they are presently stored and take one set home for off-site backup.)

So let’s summarize part one. You save every word processing document on each computer to a folder named 4thQuarter2005. If you have a network, you may use a network drive rather than the C: drive on each computer. You back up that folder at least every month by copying all of those files to two identical sets of CD-ROMs. You use your marker to write on each CD what it contains and the current date. You keep one set in the office and take one set home.

Now when you reach the end of the quarter, you need to make a big production of it in the office the first few times. Docket it and send out a memo until everyone gets used to it. The beginning of the new quarter signals the time to switch to the new folder for ALL of your word processing documents. (If you create other files like spreadsheets and PowerPoints, treat them the same way.) We’ll keep the old folder as an archive and use some extra hard drive space for duplicate copies of some documents that spanned the quarter in creation and editing. So on the first day of the new year, we’ll open any documents from the 4thQuarter2005 folder and immediately save them with the same file name in the 1stQuarter2006 folder.

There’s just one problem with this approach. It won’t work. Without a reminder, you and your staff may try your best, but you will slip from time to time, saving but not remembering to use the new folder all of the time. So in a few weeks, we will likely have all of the new documents we opened in 2006 in the 4thQuarter2006 folder and we’ll have about half of the documents that we opened in 2005 in the right place and half in the old folder. We cannot have that because we are going to stop backing up the old folder.

So here’s how we do our reminder. Well actually it will be a bit more than “just” a reminder.

At the end of every quarter, we will make all of the documents “read only.” You can open them in your word processor, but you will receive a message that the file must be saved with a new name when you try to save or open it (depending on your word processor of choice). And if you even try to save it in the same folder with the new name you cannot because you would be overwriting a “read only” file.

Even the most computer illiterate lawyer can make all of the documents in a folder “read only” in under a minute. (And your legal assistant certainly can!) Just open the folder in Windows Explorer (Windows key + E, then click on the folder). Then select all of the files. Either use (a) the key combination Ctrl + A or (b) click on the first name in the list and hold the control button down while clicking on the last name on the list.

Once all of the file names are selected, right click on the list, choose “properties,” click the checkbox labeled “read only,” and then click “apply” at the bottom. Then click “OK” at the bottom and all of the files should now be write protected, or in other words “read only.”

We’ll keep this folder around for at least a year unless hard drive space becomes critical. One does not want to have to locate a CD just to use a year-old brief for a form. Some day way on down the road you may decide to delete 4thQuarter2005 folder entirely if you are confident you have multiple copies of the information on backup CDs. But that’s at least a year or two away.

So every quarter a new document folder is used (with client subfolders if you wish) and this folder is copied to duplicate sets CDs every month with one copy/set taken out of the office for an off-site back up. This is not a perfect system and certainly less so on the 29th of the month, but you should implement it now if it is better than what you have.

So that handles all of the documents, but there’s more data to protect. That’s why we had you create that folder named 2005 and why you will need one named 2006 next year. You probably have many applications that save data, even though you may think that you primarily do word processing.

We need to put all of this data into the 2005 folder so we can back this up as well.

We’re going to do this in a few simple ways. First, with some programs, you may be able to change the folder where the data is saved to the 2005 folder. That will make it easy and automatic. With most programs, however, you will likely have to back up or export the data to the 2005 folder. To make sure we don’t miss any of these different data files that need to be backed up, we want one master word processing document to be placed in the 2005 folder which contains a list of everything that needs to be in the 2005 folder before you back it up.

Here’s one not-so-obvious example. Most readers use Internet Explorer for their Web browser. The typical user will save many favorite sites to revisit. After a while, this list of favorites can become extensive. These may not be mission critical lawyer sites or they may be. But in any event, the collection has some value. Just ask Oklahoma City attorney Jim Slayton what a pain it is to recreate your favorites after you have lost them all. Your browser also has a record of cookies. You may have heard some bad things about cookies, but cookies help you log into personalized Web sites without having to enter your user name and password, which can be very handy especially if you have forgotten your log-on information.

So to the list of data that needs to be copied to the current year’s folder for backup, you would add Internet Explorer favorites and cookies. The procedure for this one is simple. Just open your browser and click “file,” then “import and export” and export the favorites and then the cookies to folder 2005 before you do your backup of that folder.

Likewise, you have to make a copy of all other sources of information, including the data file for your time and billing program, the data file for your case management system, the .PST file which contains the records for Outlook and Outlook Express, macros for your word processor and other applications that you wish to preserve, files you may have downloaded and any other data files. Hopefully you will arrange this so as many data files as possible are automatically saved either in the 2005 folder or in sub-folders within the 2005 folder. For example, if you download many files, you should set up a folder C:\2005\downloads and download everything directly there.

To summarize then, you need to have a data folder for all of your other data files, with as many automatically saved as possible in that location and list of those files that need to be copied or exported there before you burn CDs containing all of that folder’s contents. You need to do this backup procedure at least once a month.

So if you’ve followed all of the above procedures and successfully identified all of the random data files, you now have a bullet-proof data backup system. Well, as bullet proof as you can be using CD’s and only one regular off-site backup done once a month.

So our system is now functional, and hereafter you and your staff will follow the following steps:

1. During the regular workweek, every document is saved to the folder for that quarter (or a subfolder located under that folder). “Document” includes not only word processing files, but also spreadsheet files, PowerPoint files and any individual files created by a software application that you would hate to lose.
2. At the end of each month, you export your favorites and cookies from your browser to the folder named by the current year and also manually copy to that folder any other data files that you have listed as important. Then you burn two identical CDs (or sets of CDs) with all of the contents of the year (2005) folder. Next you burn two identical CDs (or sets of CDs) with all of the contents of the current quarter folder (4thQuarter2005). Write the date and the contents on all of the CDs with your marker and take one set home. Store these safely at both locations.
3. At the end of the quarter, you do everything listed in step two above, perhaps putting a star or other indication on this CD with your marker indicating that it is the end of the quarter. Then you have to mark all of those files in the ending quarter folder as “read only” and make sure there is a new folder for the next quarter for the work that needs to be saved tomorrow.

It really isn’t that complicated once you set it up. Except, of course, it is true you will need to do this for every computer in the office.

If you are comfortable with all of this maybe you should stop reading now.

So, what’s WRONG with this process?

It looks pretty detailed and comprehensive, right? So what could possibly be wrong with this outline? Let’s cover the problems in rough order of priority.

1. Backing up your data monthly. You’ve got to be kidding. Do you know how much work could be lost with a hard drive crash in a busy law firm after a week, much less 30 days? The system we outlined is better than no backup or only backing up every few months, but losing a week’s worth of billing records alone should send shivers down the spine of any lawyer. So why did I say every month when the correct answer is at least every week? Well, it is doable for every law firm and it is really quite realistic given the time it takes to do the backup under this type of system.
2. Doing your backup manually. There’s nothing wrong with a manual backup. It is a good method of ensuring that you get the backup done for certain and there is the ability for a quick verification if you wish to use it. Nothing wrong that is, except for the time it takes. Even with all of our preparations to save time, this will still take time. This easy system as outlined would still probably take an hour for each computer by the time you copy the data files, burn and label the CD, and perform all of the other tasks. That means you cannot realistically do it daily. Even if you tried to do it daily, you would soon find you had accumulated quite a collection of backup archive CD-ROMs. There’s nothing wrong with doing a manual backup, but why not let the computer do most of the work for you?
   
   But there are many file backup software products available. They have names like Backup Buddy, InstaBack, Genie Backup Manager, NTI Backup NOW, Retrospect Professional 6.5, PowerBackup and Handy Backup, As noted in the sidebar accompanying this column, Windows XP also comes with decent backup software. Although if you use Windows XP Home Edition, you will have to first install the backup software as outlined in the sidebar to this article.
   
   With backup software, you can schedule backups as frequently as you wish. One lawyer I visited with while composing this article says his automatic office data backups are scheduled three times each workday. You will still need to go through the analysis of all of the mission critical data files that we were copying over to that 2005 backup file folder, but you do not have to create the 2005 backup folder. Instead, you can just direct the backup software to back up the various data files wherever normally they reside. Backup software can compress the data as well, which can save space on your backup storage media. You will still need to regularly check to make sure that the backup software is actually working, but that will be a lot less time consuming.
3. Backing up to CDs. Let me stress again that there is nothing inherently wrong with backing up data to a CD. For a one- or two-computer firm, this may be the preferred method of backup and even if you have the world’s most reliable backup system, burning an extra CD with a copy of that major long brief or newly revised set of forms is always a good idea. (A USB flash drive can work for these quick backups as well.) Many firms back up to tape drives, but this technology is yielding to improved technology. If you have a good backup system now, this is not meant to get you to change everything today. But if you are designing a new system, look to the small portable hard drives that can plug right into your computer. The prices on these have become quite reasonable. It is actually easier to carry a small portable drive home than a stack of CD-ROMs. We are not going to cover Internet-based backup services in this article, other than to note that many lawyers have expressed great concerns about placing client data in the hands of third parties. But expect to hear a lot more about this type of arrangement in the future.
4. Backing up Each Individual PC Frequently. If you save documents on each individual PC, you have no option other than to regularly back up the documents and data on each PC. If your computers are networked and everyone saves files to one document server PC, then that computer will be the main focus of your frequent backup and you may only do a backup of the other PCs every six months or so.
5. Not Backing up Your Applications. It was omitted intentionally from the first section, but do not forget to make a backup copy of every new software package that you purchase on a CD and then store the backup off-site (maybe in a safety deposit box) along with any serial numbers and activation codes.
6. Not Doing a Full- System Backup. We have focused on backing up the data. This is the often irreplaceable information that could destroy your practice if it is lost. But if you ever had a crisis, it would certainly be nice to restore everything in one smooth operation rather than having to reinstall Windows, reinstall all of your applications and then restore the data you had backed up. It is the better practice to do complete system backups regularly. It is also harder to accomplish this as opposed to data only backups. If you are not doing complete backups, let me at least suggest that you purchase new computers no less than every three years.
7. Not Testing Your Backup System. Run a test restore “file drill” in the office. Intentionally delete a file or document (after making a copy) and see if you actually can restore it from your backup media. That is the point after all. This is one thing that many offices fail to do. You should also train more than one person in how to use the backup/restore procedure and the responsible lawyers should know how to do it as well.

Conclusion

Several things lead to the drafting of this column. Katrina causing such great losses was one. There are a number of people who post to law technology electronic mailing lists saying, “I never do a full backup I just back up a few folders and have a backup of everything I need.” As I have hopefully illustrated above, it is a fairly complicated process to prepare for “complete” data-only backups. I have no doubt that the true solo practitioner with only one computer and no employees can do his or her data backup this way with a fair degree of ease. But bringing employees into the picture means developing systems so that everyone’s data is backed up. Then a documented system is required.

The reliability of modern computer systems lets us be complacent. Windows may crash from time to time, but how many times does a hard drive crash and wipe out all of the data? Well, it may happen more frequently than you think. But certainly hard drives are now fairly reliable. I’ve used many computers over the years and only had one hard drive crash that lost my data. Even in that situation, there were early warnings that caused me to be very good about keeping a current backup. The odds are that it won’t happen to you. The odds are that your office will not burn or be devastated by a tornado or vandalism. But this does happen somewhere to some lawyer every day. Even though the odds are in your favor, contemplate for a moment the impact of the loss of all of your records, your life’s work, your calendar, your work in progress and your forms. I have personally talked with several lawyers in Mississippi and Louisiana who have experienced that. Is that really something you want to risk just because the odds are in your favor?

Good backup procedures are both a required business practice and an ethical obligation to your clients.

USING THE BACKUP SOFTWARE WINDOWS XP USERS ALREADY OWN

If you use Windows XP Professional, the Windows Backup utility should be all ready for you to use. Click on “start,” go to “all programs,” go to “accessories,” go to “system tools” and then click “backup” to start the wizard. For more detailed instructions, go to http://tinyurl.com/3lvzn.

If you use Windows XP Home Edition, before you can follow the instructions above, you will need to first use the following steps to install the utility:

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into the drive and, if necessary, double-click the CD icon in “my computer.”
2. On the Welcome to Microsoft Windows XP screen, click “perform additional tasks.”
3. Click “browse this CD.”
4. In Windows Explorer, double-click the ValueAdd folder, then the Msft folder, and then the Ntbackup folder.
5. Double-click Ntbackup.msi to start a wizard that installs the backup utility.

For more information on installing the backup software to Windows XP Home Edition, go to http://tinyurl.com/3vvzg.

Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal November 19, 2005 - Vol. 76; No.32