Disaster Recovery — Part III

One of the primary and most essential ingredients to disaster recovery is communication – communication with associate lawyers and with staff. Don’t forget vendors and clients and the courts, and others who make your business work.

But, setting up a good communications system must be in place before the disaster occurs.

After a disaster …

… the focus has to be on re-establishing lines of communication. Technology can be best used for this … the day-in, day-out effort to find phone numbers and other contact information to determine if your people are still there, o.k., and not victims of the disaster..

Beyond this, it’s really simply (not so simple) a question of opening/starting one’s law practice all over again. The very basics of this effort, which will be difficult to implement because the vendors (phone companies, landlords for space, etc.) or their businesses may not survived either (they, too, will be going through the same process of reestablishing their businesses) …

The need, then, beyond phone and space and staff, is to look outside your geographic area for reestablishment of your law office operation …. Look to vendors such as Lexis, West, technology consultants, the internet for phone connection and the like; look to reconstruct your office and make it, again, feel like home away from home….

For check lists of the steps needed, you may want to consult with one or more of the several bar associations that have information about start-ups; look at the California Young Lawyers Association book about starting a law practice, look at the American Bar Association‘s publishing efforts (General Practice Section and Law Practice Management Section), as well as our books for start-up guidance. (Look, for example, at our chapter on moving a law office; the checklist there is directly on point to this topic.)

And, of course, if you’re in the situation of needing to re-establish, let us know and we will provide any further assistance we can.

Categorized in: Management