In the legal industry we refer to this as Disaster Prevention and Preparation Planning. In the “outside” world it’s mostly referred to as Business Continuity Planning. I know, I know. . . in a law firm when we think of continuity planning our mind focuses on institutionalizing the firm and grappling with the issues related to the orderly succession of clients to the next generation. So you need to wrap your mind around this different nomenclature in order to take advantage of some additional resources I’ve found.
Fifty-two percent of the 669 business continuity planning (BCP) professionals who participated in a recent survey jointly conducted by Strohl Systems and CPM-Global Assurance, said they didn’t think their plan would hold up in the event of wide-spread communications failures such as those following a Katrina-like or 9/11 event.
Approximately 25 percent of the survey participants said they use an emergency notification system, 27 percent said they plan to explore purchasing one, and 48 percent said they do not use an emergency notification system.
In a somewhat self-serving explanation, Brian Turley, President of Strohl Systems, stated in a PR Newswire release, “Having stable communications is vital to the success of a business continuity plan. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, we all saw first-hand how recovery can be hampered by a lack of effective communications. Following each and every disaster, we always hear about that one means of communications that worked all the way through. After 9/11 it was Blackberries and after Katrina and the London subway bombings it was SMS text messaging. The key is to diversify your communications strategy. You can’t just rely on one or two means of communications to get your message out. Today, you need five, six, seven, or more ways to communicate. . . . Effective business continuity planning programs plan for the possibility that communications may be sporadic at best. These organizations take the time to evaluate and purchase an emergency notification system, review their communications providers’ business continuity plans and test their call trees.”
Self-serving or not, his statements are absolutely true. The time to find out whether or not your post-disaster communication plan works is not after the disaster has struck!
I found some decent resources to assist firms in creating or updating of their Business Continuity a/k/a/ Disaster Prevention and Preparation plans on the Strohl website. Numerous brief survey results are summarized for viewing here. If you look here you will find links to
— articles and resources for testing your call tree / communications plan
— tips from seasoned professionals on how to get and maintain executive support for a BCP program. Boy, this is just critical at law firms, isn’t it?
— Tip Sheets on how to minimize potential business disruptions in the event of Earthquake, Flood, Hurricane, Severe Winter Storm, Terrorism and Tornado.
— case studies (in downloadable PDF format) of how large corporations and even one law firm used their plans to deal with actual disasters
— articles and essays on a variety of BCP issues
I also invite you to read my straight-forward articles on this topic including Protect Your Clients and Your Firm: Prepare for Disaster Before It Happens, and Protecting Your Computer, which can be found here and here.
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