Are You Prepared for a Real Disaster?
by Jim Calloway
Coordinator, OBA Management Assistance Program

During September 1997, two law firms in Norman were hit by fires. Luckily, the damage in these two fires was not severe. But somewhere a group of lawyers has recently had to survey the smoking ruins of what used to be their law office. None of us like to think about disasters. Thinking of your office in smoking ruins may make you ill. (On the other hand, some days you may fantasize about striking the match yourself.) Failing to plan for a disaster does not make it less likely to happen.

Insurance first - Obviously the best protection against disaster is adequate insurance. Attorneys should adequately insure their home and vehicles as well as their places of business. Make sure to carefully review the "valuable" papers provisions of your office insurance policy. Sometimes a rider is required here at a small extra premium to be appropriately insured. If you have computer equipment at home, your should make sure that your homeowner’s insurance covers it adequately. For car insurance purposes, remember what all personal injury lawyers know: "Uninsured motorist is you best insurance value."

Lawyers should consider insuring home, office and vehicles with the same insurance carrier so that an "umbrella" additional liability policy can be purchased at a nominal premium which will greatly increase the total amount of liability insurance. Disability insurance should also be considered.

Employee instructions - Suppose your office gets a call from the courthouse and your staff learns that you have collapsed in court and have been taken to the hospital. Do they know who to call so that your children are picked up from school or daycare? Which relatives should they notify? Will they think to notify opposing counsel and the court for tomorrow morning’s hearing just in case? Can they determine which deadlines can be extended? A quick call to the opposing counsel can safely delay an answer date or a discovery response, but a petition in error may be another matter. To add to the confusion, just assume that your trusted legal assistant, the one that knows everything, is out of town that week.

For solo practitioners, this is a particular problem. Certain decisions may require a lawyer’s analysis, particularly if you are out of commission for several days. Your staff may turn to your best friend from law school, who is a frequently visitor to your office, for advice. But that might not be the person you would select. Solos should consider designating an emergency "buddy" lawyer. Each of you agrees to assist the other’s staff in the case of an emergency.

Once you’ve made these arrangements and determinations, follow the advice you so often give your clients: Put it in Writing. Make sure everyone knows where the instructions are located; hopefully they will be in your firm’s Disaster Recovery File.

Disaster Recovery Files - Disaster recovery planning has two major elements for the law office. First of all, you need at least two sets of disaster recovery files and, secondly, you need backup tapes of your computer’s data.

The disaster recovery file should be stored on site in a secure (hopefully fireproof) location with a complete copy stored off-site in a very secure location.

These files should be useful for the minor disasters as well as major disasters. Sometimes a very minor disaster can become a major disaster if it occurs when the law office manager or trusted legal assistant is on vacation or otherwise unavailable.

For minor disasters such as computer hardware breakdown, there should be a copy of all service contracts and the address, name and phone number of the person contact for service for all office equipment.

For the minor disaster of a lawyer losing their wallet or purse, there should be the name and account number of every credit card and the account number with the 800 number to report the loss. You may want to include the phone number of the bank and the account for every bank account. (Now you see why it is very important that this information be stored in a secure location.)

The Disaster Recovery Files may also include the following:

- Name, address and phone number of all clients for all open files and the case numbers

- You docketing information (you may be the judge as to how frequently you wish this to be updated)

- Emergency medical information and contact information including phone numbers of relatives for all attorneys and all staff as well as special instructions such as child care or relative not to notify by phone

- Specialized medical information that employees want you to have (due to the Americans with Disabilities Act, employees should be assured that they are not required to provide any confidential medical information to the employer if they do not wish)

- Registration/license number on all software owned by the law firm (including that which came pre-loaded with the computer as they were purchased)

- Serial or registration number on all hardware and office furnishings

- A list of all major purchases (non-consumables) including the date purchased and the approximate price.

- For the solo practitioners, instructions of what should be done with various files in case of death or disability, e.g. family law cases referred to attorney "A: and workers’ comp cases to attorney "B", and young attorney "C" may be retained for minor court appearances.

Multimedia insurance records - For insurance purposes you should video tape all of the office equipment at least every six months (and immediately after major purchases) and store the video tape off-site. Be sure and go through every nook and cranny of the offices as you are video taping, including opening all drawers, file cabinets and storage areas. If you ever do have to make an insurance claim, you will be amazed at the number of items such as fans, file folders, chairs, briefcases, and other small items that will be recorded by the video where you might otherwise fail to file an insurance claim.

Not only would a videotape be outstanding evidence in the event a claim was contested, but it is a project you can do in a few minutes with little cost or preparation. Just have someone bring a video camcorder and a blank tape to the office.

Computer data backup - At this time there should be no doubt that lawyers now professionally live and die by the date and information that is stored on their computers. All of the hard drives on all computers will fail eventually. Let me repeat. "All of the hard drives on all of the computers will fail eventually." The only question is whether you trade off or stop using the computer before the hard drive fails. It is absolutely critical that you do a data back up of all your data on a daily basis. It is also critical that you do a data backup of your entire system (including all of the software programs) at least weekly and store this backup off site. If your office burns to the ground it does not matter how religiously you performed your tape backups if they are now smouldering within your former office building.

While it is theoretically possible to back up your data to floppy disks, the process is so time consuming that no one will ever do it regularly. Digital backup tapes and removable storage devices such as the Iomega Zip drive are the most popular back up methods. Remember to test your backup system by restoring it or portions of it to the hard drive at least annually. There are horror stories of peeople who always apparently did their back ups only to learn that the tape was bad or blank when they finally needed to use it.

Password Protection - Any computer in the office with sensitive information should be password protected. This is a very simple matter to accomplish under Windows 95. You can also password the computer within the ROM so that there can be no access to the computer without the password. Do not use as the pasword the first or last name of the attorney or the person operating the computer. Do not tape your passwords for the computer and your on-line services to the "signing board" that pulls out of most executive desks. Most hackers do not use high tech electonic means to gain unauthorized access to computer systems. They get passwords by calling over the phone and asking for them, gaining access to an office and checking signing boards on the deask or going through trash outside businesses. Employees should be instructed not to give out their passwoprds on the phone. There is no need for your password to be difficult or hard to remember, but the use of your first name as a password reneders the whole computer system vulnerable.

As more and more law office systems set up for remote access to the computer network from the attorneys at home, passwords and password protection will become even more of a critical issue.

An Action Plan for your office - Most attorneys reading this article will consider that at least some of these suggestions need to be done in their offices. They will then set aside this Bar Journal, making a mental note to do a Disaster Recovery Plan in the near future. For most, that future time will never come.

Why not just take 20 minutes now and do it? He are our suggested steps:

1) Take your dectation equipment in hand and, refgerring to the first part of this article, dictate your important personal information and instructions if you were incapacitated. Setting a good example is the best way to encourage others to comply.

2) Designate someone as your Disaster Recovery Coordinator (or memo a duggestion to your partners if you lack the authority). This person will circulate a memo from you and a copy of this article to everyone in the office.

3) Next dictate your memo. Hopefully this article is self explanatory, so your memo will maining contain the deadlines for finishing the plan. He are some suggestions:

A) Everyone shall read this article and return their emergency personal information to the Corrdinator within one week.

B) Any ideas for other information that should go into your firms unique Disaster Recovery File should be submitted to the Coordinator withing two weeks. The Coordinator should gather most of the information by that time as well.

C) Notice of the date of a firn-wide meeting has been scheduled (withing three to four weeks) with all employees and staff to review the non-private parts of the Disaster Recovery File with the Coordinator. Consider making this a luncheon. That may also be the day thaat the videotape is made of everything in the office.

4) After two weeks, there should be an appointment for you to check with the Coordinator on progress and start of rough draft of the firm policies on the Disaster Recover Plan (e.g. frequency of updating the off-site file, how information on new purchases is placed into the file, etc.). These policies can be finalialized and revised at the firm meeting. Perssonally deal with any noncompliaaance on the prior assignments.

We hope you will never have to make use of your disaster planning. But, as we all know, unexpected things happen. We do not buy insurance hoping to make a claim. Most attorneys will recover the time expended on this project in the future by more immedate access to a credit card cancellation or service department phone number, or a serial number. Someone with a significant disaster may experience benefits beyond belief.

Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal December 13, 1997 - Vol. 68; No.46