Make More Rain : disaster recovery, risk managment

Fire Destroys 170,000 Law Firm Files

Admin — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:31:44 GMT

On July 26, 2006, the Grapevine section of the United Kingdom-based online publication The Lawyer.com reported on UK firms desperately trying to come to terms with the loss of 170,000 files destroyed in a massive east London warehouse fire. The publication noted that in the aftermath of the fire, one firm has new plans to convert all paper documents to electronic records.

The warehouse fire is another reminder. It could happen to you!

As morepartnerincome has previously noted, electronic scanning is the only way to realistically protect the contents of paper documents from destruction in a disaster. As a bonus, you gain all the other advantages of digitized information and images.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.

Law Firms Can't Protect Paper

Admin — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 20:00:00 GMT

The President of Juris, Inc., Stephen Collins, was one of two keynote speakers at the recent Houston, Texas, Managing Partner Forum organized by The Remsen Group, www.TheRemsenGroup.com.

Given recent events, it is not surprising that disaster recovery was one of the hot discussion topics. But this discussion was different from the usual checklist of prevention steps. What made it different were the real life stories and experiences from those shut down by Katrina. One eight-office firm had five of its eight offices shut down at the same time - all rendered inaccessible.

Their chances of full recovery are much higher than if these firms had suffered from more isolated individual crises. That observation was one of two important points to come out of the discussion. Law offices hit by Katrina were not alone. Because everyone was in the same situation, they got a competitive pass. Firms recovering from Katrina feel they learned a critical lesson—law firms have an obligation to be prepared and survival depends on it.

The second lesson is that "you cannot protect paper!" That is risk number one. You can replace office space, equipment, phones, etc., but without your "client and case stuff," you are out of business. The only way to protect the contents of paper is to convert it to electronic digits and images. Once you have done that, you have the ability to apply the same safeguards available to you to secure your computer records. But as noted in a prior post, traditional in-house backups are unreliable and nearby off-site storage faces the same risk as the law firm’s location. The right choice is to use an online backup service such as LiveVault.

Very large law firms view the proposition of digitalizing paper as impossible given the size of the task. It is a daunting task for any law firm. One firm pointed out that their off-site storage facility charges $3.00 to retrieve a box and $1.00 to store it. At $3.00 a box, the firm explained that it would cost $40,000 just to pull archived information for the purpose of scanning it.

Everyone needs to take a deep breath. This is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Every year that passes renders the archived information less essential to the firm’s survival. You don’t have to convert all the archived paper records. The key is to start.

Every one of us is at risk from something—hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, floods, vandalism, broken pipes, terrorists, etc. The two most important steps you can take to protect the survivability of your firm and the interest of your clients from disaster is to 1) start converting new paper through scanning and 2) start using an online service to back up that information and safeguard it.

Disaster Response Checklist For Law Firms

Admin — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:06:40 GMT

Here we go again. Rita is aiming for the Texas Coast and Houston area!

The American Institute of CPAs published an uncopyrighted checklist for CFOs dealing with disaster response. The AICPA's advice is consistent with that in previous posts. The first obligation is to see to employees’ safety and security, then to the operations, and finally to the financial situation. The last step in the checklist is what should have been done to prepare for the contingency of a disaster. If you recall, in prior posts we set out three simple steps that if carried out would materially increase the chances of a law firm’s survival:

Have a clear policy that lives of employees are not to be put at risk to protect the firm property.
Make sure that employee contact information, as well as information on key suppliers, customers and others, are in the hands of the right people.
Take steps to protect the critical information of the law firm by using an online backup service.

The AICPA checklist is as follows:

Disaster Response—A Plan for CFOs and Controllers

When a company faces a disaster, whether it is a local or regional situation, it must address a variety of issues in a timely manner. When this occurs, chief financial officers, controllers, and other senior finance people have a responsibility first to the employees’ safety and security, then to the operations, and finally to the financial situation. These checklists help walk the finance executive through disaster response in a series of phases, outlining issues that need to be addressed to understand damage and minimize ongoing risks.

Action
1. Identify and locate all employees. Determine whether any employees are missing. Identify employees traveling, determine a means for communication, consider security issues, and review travel plans and requirements. Evacuate employees in high risk countries, if applicable. Stop travel to those same countries.
2. Understand the needs of employees’ families to determine whether any support is needed that the company can provide.
3. Organize a system for staying in contact with, for example, key employees, vendors, customers, insurance agents.
4. Review and assess any new or additional security requirements needed for plants, IT systems, and employees, for example
5. Assess transportation issues, and determine whether temporary housing may be needed.
Action
1. Consider employees, benefits, and HR issues. Are alternate means of payroll delivery necessary? Consider health and disability insurance issues, life insurance, personal leave, and cash loans or advances to employees.
2. Consider behavioral issues, such as grief counseling, productivity, and back-to-normal plan.
3. Assess business status. Are we able to operate right now? Determine, for example, immediate or impending deadlines, due dates, customer and supplier needs. Assess the state of your technology and systems. Determine when the last backup took place.
4. Identify a key spokesperson for the company.
5. Consider immediate needs, such as space, communications equipment, skills and roles that need replacing immediately. Redeploy people as needed.
6. Identify and communicate with employees, customers, clients, key owners and shareholders, insurance companies, creditors, banks, suppliers and vendors, strategic partners, and analysts.
Action
1. Look at operational risks, such as work-in-progress, cancellations, no-shows, refunds, lost revenues, and undeliverable materials.
2. Understand the operational risks of customers and suppliers. Work together where possible to minimize the risks to all parties.
3. Determine assistance available, such as credit lines, disaster loans and grants, people and expertise, hardware and software, professional bodies, and trade associations.
4. Consider technology issues. Were technology partners affected? Are redundant systems operational?
5. Establish plan for alternate postal deliveries.
6. Ascertain the status of your assets.
7. Contact competitors. Consider outsourcing production to them so you can meet the needs of your customers.
8. Assess you financial status. What is your cash position? Cash burn rate? Immediate cash needs? Can you access the cash?
9. Determine whether insurance policies are available covering, for example, key individuals, other life, property, business interruption, and disability.
10.Determine availability of records. Where are the last available financial statements? Check with auditors and attorneys. What records do they have copies of?
Action
1. Does the company have skills and equipment that could assist in disaster recovery if this is a wide-scale disaster (that is, affecting others outside the confines of the company)?
2. Consider current business plan and what cannot be executed.
3. Develop a new business plan based on the current situation.
Action
1. Develop a disaster plan with two backup or alternate plans.
2. Develop and maintain a list of key contacts, including families, insurance companies, customers, and suppliers. Also consider identifying other service and professional resources, such as engineers and restoration specialists.
3. Maintain a closet of emergency supplies on site, including some food, water, flashlights and batteries, a source of heat, and a source of communication.
4. Identify key Web sites that could help in disaster recovery.
5. Distribute disaster recovery information to all employees in the form of wallet cards or other means that are easily accessible. Distribute two copies of the complete plan to all key employees: one copy for home, one copy for office.

Disaster Planning for Law Firms

Admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 17:53:07 GMT

One of the reasons so few firms have a disaster plan is that we tend to make them too complicated. A simple plan is more workable and you are far more likely to develop and follow such a plan. Complex disaster plans are likely to be destroyed right along with paper documents in a real disaster.

In 2002, the Juris® Users International Group held a panel discussion on disaster planning and out of that discussion came elements of an effective and simple plan—three steps that every law firm can implement.

Here are the steps as set forth by the panel:

1. The first priority is personal safety—always protect lives first. Establish evacuation and reassemble procedures. Make sure everyone understands that no one is to risk or endanger their life or the life of others for paper, media, or any other material or firm property.

2. Second, maintain current employee contact information (including an alternate contact outside of the area for use as an intermediary) and get the contact information in the right hands and in various forms, including a printed document. Establish calling "trees" so that by contacting a few people, information can be disseminated quickly to everyone.

3. The next priority is to protect the survivability of the firm by making sure that critical information is safe before the occurrence of a disaster. Online backup services were not economically available in 2002. They are available today. They are far superior to in-house backup procedures and methods. In-house backups often prove unreadable when required and as the New Orleans situation demonstrates—locally maintained off-site backups face the same risk as the law firm itself. Juris, Inc. has partnered with LiveVault to provide secure continuous backup service to Juris law firms. On-line backups are always current, always secure and are available even if you are operating from a different location. You may want to reconsider imaging to protect your paper documents. Imaging is the only technology that facilitates the protection of documents using traditional computer backups. And you gain all the other advantages of digitized information and images.The above three steps are the essentials and if implemented will materially increase the ability of the firm to survive in a crisis. There are three other steps that take your plan to a higher level. How thoroughly you should pursue the added three items depends on the risk faced by your present location. Are you at high risk from water, earthquake, fire, or terrorist attack, for example? The three additional items involve Facilities, Equipment and Insurance.

1. Address the issue of where the firm can set up a temporary operation. This may be as simple as identifying the homes of certain partners preparing a list of options, including branch offices or client locations. It is a good idea to identify and establish contact with a commercial real estate organization that you can call on a moment’s notice. Your plan could be as elaborate as contracting for backup space. This depends on the degree of risk faced at your present location. Generally, the space issue can be resolved after the fact, provided steps 1-3 have been carried out.

2. Address the equipment and phone issues. This can be as simple as identifying portable equipment and cell phones owned by the law firm but assigned to individuals that can be called in for firm use in a crisis. It can be as elaborate as contracting with an offsite disaster recovery facility or maintaining a server, network and minimum equipment at an offsite facility for emergency use. This issue can usually be resolved in a reasonable time period after the fact, provided steps 1-3 are in place.

3. Provide additional insurance to finance payroll and operations during the period of business interruption.

To summarize, the three essential disaster preparatory steps your firm should have in place include:

1. A communicated policy for putting personal safety first;

2. Maintain personnel contact information in the hands of the right people;

3. Use a online backup service like LiveVault to protect critical data.

Juris clients can learn more about LiveVault services available through Juris, Inc. by calling 877/377-3740 or by e-mailing info@juris.com. Law firms can also contact LiveVault directly by going to www.livevault.com.

Law Firm Disaster Survival

Admin — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 17:48:19 GMT

We have a personal stake in what is going on in the gulf coast region. Juris, Inc. has in excess of 130 law firm clients in harm’s way from Katrina. Seventy of those are in the areas most affected by Katrina, including New Orleans. Katrina may well involve more Juris clients than any single prior event. The first concern for the people of Juris is for the individuals affected, including the employees of Juris law firms and their families. Juris, Inc. has made a contribution to the American Red Cross and many Juris team members are making individual contributions.

On the business side, the most important role Juris will play is helping law firms to recover data and resume operation when circumstances allow. The availability of usable backup data will be critical to the recovery efforts. In other disaster situations, we’ve seen first-hand the consequences of law firms using in-house backup methods as their primary data protection strategy. Given the wide area of destruction from Katrina, we are more concerned than ever about the backup issue. Even those law firms that took the extra step of storing backups in their bank or in the home of a trusted employee are at risk from damage or the loss of the backup media.

Katrina brings home the importance of a safe and secure backup. If you are still making your own backup, you are putting your firm at risk. Stop relying on error-prone and unsecured in-house backup procedures and spend the few extra dollars necessary to truly secure your system’s critical information. The way to do that is by using the services of one of the major suppliers of continuous online backup services. The additional cost is not that great, and it is a small price to pay to secure the continuity of the law firm and the preservation of the livelihood of every member of the law firm team.

Juris has partnered with LiveVault to provide Juris law firms with continuous online backup services. LiveVault is one of the best sources of online backup services but regardless of whom you use, please take the above advice—stop relying on in-house backup methods and use a secure online alternative from one of the major suppliers. It is one of the easiest steps you can take to help insure the survivability of the law firm. Your backup data will always be current, will be safely stored in a secure location and will be available when you need it, even if you are operating from an alternative location.

If you are a Juris licensee and would like more information about LiveVault, contact Juris, Inc. at 877-377-3740 or e-mail info@Juris.com. You can also contract LiveVault directly by going to

http://www.livevault.com.

Challenge Number 3: Outsourcing by Law Firms

Admin — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 18:52:00 GMT

I feel compelled to mention Katrina victims before getting into the subject of today’s post. I have made a donation to the Red Cross. Juris, Inc. has done the same. I know that many (if not all) Juris team members are making individual contributions. You probably have already done so, but if not, please make a contribution to the American Red Cross, http://www.redcross.org, or your preferred organization. The Katrina victims are family (our countrymen) and family comes first. They need us to dig deep.

Unfortunately, there will be law firms, especially in the New Orleans area, that never reopen their doors. Out of all the steps a law firm can take to survive a disaster, one of the most important is the easiest to do but seldom done. Tomorrow's post will be devoted to that step.

Back to today’s subject—the third challenge to law firm growth indicated by the 2005 Managing Partner Survey involves Outsourcing. Profitable Growth and Long-Term Viability require investment and a willingness to outsource specialized functions.

Technology has and will continue to put pressure on all businesses to move faster, be more efficient and effective not only to grow but to simply survive. Top performing companies no longer look at technology investments as a one-time or periodic cost. Technology is a recurring operational expense and you simply can’t afford to manage it every few years. Infrastructure is not just about electronics and software. Increasingly, law firms are outsourcing back office and even some front office functions (i.e., legal research).

More than 90% of the Am Law 100 outsourced payroll vs. only 36% of the firms we surveyed. Focus on practicing law by taking advantage of technology and outsourcing. Failure to do so will ultimately hurt your practice materially and you’ll lag other firms in terms of per-partner income and the ability to serve clients as they expect.

Rule-Based Docketing

Admin — Tue, 31 May 2005 19:20:00 GMT

I was once asked what I liked most and least about traveling as much as I do. What I like most are the friends I’ve made all across this country. Not only among law firms but, also, within the community of vendors and consultants serving law firms. Among my favorites are the folks at CompuLaw®. The CompuLaw team reinvented Docketing and has set a standard that no one else has matched -- or even come close.

Docketing is a mission-critical application for a law firm. Failure to properly calendar critical legal dates associated with changing rules is one of the leading causes of legal malpractice suits against attorneys. Most vendors of law firm business software offer their clients a Docketing option including the ability for the law firm to define rules that explode an event into multiple Docket entries -- one for each critical date. Of course, the law firm can get it wrong when defining rules for a particular jurisdiction and important rule changes can go unnoticed.

CompuLaw changed all of that beginning in 1980. Since the 1980s, CompuLaw has offered the only library of rules databases written and edited by attorneys. CompuLaw is an official publisher of rules for courts throughout the United States and it monitors its rules databases for changes on a daily basis. New rules databases are added regularly. Compulaw's Vision system dominates the market for rule-based docketing applications. For that reason, most leading legal software vendors have an allied or partner relationship with CompuLaw. Juris,Inc. for example, offers its clients a “CompuLaw Aware Module” that detects the presence of the CompuLaw system and automatically modifies the operation of Juris® for a seamless integration.

Today, law firm’s have a new alternative. CompuLaw has created something entirely new, “Deadlines On Demand™” -- a pay-as-you-go service over the Internet. Deadlines on Demand is a CompuLaw company. With Deadlines on Demand, law firms can take advantage of the same reliable Compulaw rules over the Internet without purchasing additional software.

A law firm can access Deadlines on Demand, enter the information for a particular case and then download the results into their Microsoft® Outlook® calendar component.

More than two decades of experience, as well as strategic alliances with today's foremost legal vendors, have made CompuLaw The Court Rules Company^SM. Now every law firm can take advantage of CompuLaw rules by going to www.deadlines.com.

P. S. What I like least is the fourth day. By the fourth day, I’m ready to go home.

Malpractice Suits on the Rise

Admin — Fri, 20 May 2005 17:51:36 GMT

Last week, Suzanne Rose, stopped by for a visit. Suzanne Rose is a Brentwood, Tennessee, based specialist focusing on practice management and the critical areas of law firm leadership, strategic management, practice administration and profitability. She is the author of an article posted on ABAnet.org titled Firm Culture: Is Your Firm Culture Exposing the Firm to Malpractice or Ethics Complaints?

Her article is particularly relevant today due to the significant rise in malpractice suits. Emma Schwartz writes in Legal Times, “It's getting more expensive for corporate lawyers to defend themselves.”

The number of big-ticket suits has risen dramatically in recent years. As a result, expect higher premiums, higher deductibles and fewer carriers willing to provide coverage. In other words, the cost to insure is continuing to climb upward. Higher cost alone is probably the “good news”. The bad news would be for your firm to be one of those hit with a major suit, i.e., $2,000,000 plus or for insurance carriers to decline to cover your firm all together.

Schwartz notes, “With mounting pressure from insurance companies, firms have centralized ethics procedures, hired in-house general counsel, instituted fresh ethics training and become more persistent about scrutinizing practice group management.”

All of this brings me back to Rose’s article on ABAnet.org. She identifies and describes symptoms of five cultural characteristics that put a firm at high risk for a malpractice or ethics complaint:

1) Short-Team View

2) Office–Space Sharers DBA/a Law Firm

3) Fiscal Irresponsibility

4) Lack of Trust and Integrity Among Firm Members

5) Eat-What-You-Kill Philosophy

Suzanne Rose does a great job of laying out the symptoms of each of the five areas, plus how those symptoms lead to malpractice exposure and what you can do to minimize your risk. She refers the reader to The Minnesota Lawyers Mutual Prolegia™ Web site, www.Mimins.com. The site has an on-line survey you can take to assess the adequacy of your risk management efforts.

To rate your risk management efforts, go to www.mlmins.com/PracticeManagement/RiskManagementSurvey.aspx.