Article
Posted on
No matter how prepared you are, a disaster can happen to any law firm. Whether it’s a cyberattack, natural disaster, or something else entirely, disasters can damage your systems and disrupt your operations for an extended period of time.
This is why it’s so important for laws to have a disaster recovery and business continuity plan in place. A disaster recovery plan specifies exactly how you’ll respond in this situation to prevent lost clients and long-term damage.
Here’s why disaster preparedness is so important for law firms and what to consider when creating your disaster recovery plan.
Key Takeaways
- Natural disasters, cybersecurity incidents, and other disruptive events can have serious financial and legal consequences for your business.
- Having a disaster recovery plan in place can help you minimize long-term damage and get up and running faster in a disaster.
- Key components of any disaster recovery plan include data backups, communication plans, and employee training.
- Managed IT service providers can help you audit your systems and put together a disaster recovery plan.
Key Components of a Disaster Recovery Plan for Law Firms
A disaster recovery plan should be comprehensive and address many different aspects of your business. Here are the key components that every law firm disaster recovery plan should have.
Data Management and Backup Solutions
The first step in any disaster recovery plan is backing up your data. All data your law firm collects should be backed up to a secure location on a regular basis.
Because law firms complete so much case work each day, your data should ideally be backed up every 24 hours.
Your data backups should be in a different location from your primary data storage solutions. For example, if you primarily store your data in on-premise servers at your office, consider using a cloud solution for backup, and vice versa.
This way, if your primary data storage solution is compromised, your backups will still be safe.
When deciding where to back up your client data, it’s important to consider privacy and ethics. If you’re working with third-party cloud providers for your data backups, those providers should adhere to privacy standards from the American Bar Association and other industry leaders.
In your disaster recovery plan, you should specify which data is most crucial for your business and needs to be recovered first. You’ll also need to specify how to recover the data securely and who’s responsible for doing it.
Communication Plans
Next, your disaster recovery plan should outline how you plan to communicate with your team, clients, partners, and the general public when disaster strikes.
Honesty and transparency is key to prevent long-term damage to your business in this situation.
Start by specifying how you’ll communicate internally about the disaster. Who needs to be notified first and how? Include important contact information in your disaster recovery plan so it’s easily accessible.
This ensures that all relevant parties are informed quickly and no one is left in the dark.
Then, determine how you’ll communicate about the problem to your clients and service partners. This will look different for every firm and can vary depending on the type of disaster and the type of data compromised.
Sensitive client information always needs to be handled securely, regardless of the scope of the disaster.
Keep in mind that legal professionals have a responsibility to communicate in a timely manner with clients in these situations. Failing to do so could compromise the integrity of your business.
Recovery Procedures
Next, you’ll need to outline your firm’s business recovery procedures. These are tasks that you’ll need to complete to get your operations back up and running smoothly. 40% of businesses never reopen after a disaster, which is why detailed recovery procedures are so important.
Depending on the type of disaster, this could include adjusting deadlines and rescheduling court dates, reproducing any lost documents, filing insurance claims, and re-securing your digital systems.
If a natural disaster has damaged your office, you may need to find an alternate work location. This could also involve purchasing new computers, setting up call-forwarding services, and finding secure Wi-Fi networks to use.
Employee Training and Awareness
Finally, you’ll need to provide training for all your employees so they know what to do in the event of a disaster. The first few hours are critical when it comes to disaster recovery, and appropriate employee training can help prevent delays.
Start by offering periodic training sessions for your team to cover key components of your disaster recovery strategy. This can be combined with broader cybersecurity training as necessary.
Make sure your employees know where and how to access your disaster recovery plan and other important materials. Each employee should also understand their unique role in disaster response so they know what to focus on.
For example, one team member might be primarily responsible for communicating with clients, while others might be focused on restoring data backups and getting systems online. These assignments should be specific to each employee’s role and skill set.
How to Assess Your Law Firm’s Risk
Before you start putting together your disaster recovery plan, you’ll need to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment for your law practice. This will help you identify any weaknesses and determine what to focus on in your recovery plan.
Start by identifying potential threats that are specific to your organization. These could include:
- Natural disasters: Consider which weather events are most likely given your geographical location.
- Cyberattacks: Many law firms are targets for cyber crime and data breaches due to the sensitive nature of the data they collect.
- Conflict/political disasters: Depending on the specific legal services you offer, your law firm could be vulnerable to changes in the current political situation or global conflicts. However, this is very rare.
- Pandemics: The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated just how important it is to be prepared for potential health emergencies, although they are unlikely.
- Human error: The risk of human error is present in every line of work, but it can be particularly high if you’re not offering adequate training or support for your employees.
Once you’ve identified these vulnerabilities you can start searching for potential solutions to include in your disaster recovery plan.
There are many strategies and tools you can use to conduct risk assessments for your law firm.
For example, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and the CISA Cybersecurity Evaluation Tool (CSET) are both popular options for assessing digital security risks in your systems.
You can also use managed IT services to create a more in-depth risk assessment.
When evaluating risk, don’t just think about potential business disruption. You’ll also need to consider the potential legal implications of a disaster.
Law firms have very strict compliance standards to adhere to, particularly when it comes to keeping client files private. Failing to do so could lead to fines or other legal complications.
Planning for Different Types of Disasters
Your contingency plan should account for many different types of disasters. Here are some of the most common incidents to plan for.
Natural Disasters
A nearby natural disaster can be hugely detrimental to your firm’s operations. Things like hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and earthquakes can all be extremely dangerous and damage your law firm’s property.
Even if your office isn’t affected, your clients and service partners might be. Additionally, natural disasters can compromise phone and internet access in your area.
This is one reason why cloud-based data backups are so important. With cloud data storage, your data is kept in a separate location, which means it won’t be affected by the disaster. Additionally, you’ll still be able to access your systems online once you’ve evacuated to a safe location.
Technological Failures
One survey found that 98% of law firms have some form of business continuity plan. However, not all plans account for unexpected technical or cybersecurity issues.
Every piece of technology has a lifespan, so it’s important to prepare for your devices to eventually fail. This is another area where cloud-based data backups can help prevent data loss and minimize downtime.
Additionally, it’s important to plan for the potential loss of your software tools and third-party tech vendors. For example, a SaaS provider that you rely on could go out of business. Having a backup option can help prevent downtime.
Human Error
Everyone makes mistakes, but for law firms, human error could be a serious disruptive event. Your disaster plan should specify what to do in the event that an employee’s mistake turns into a data breach or a ransomware attack.
How Can an IT Service Provider Help?
Putting together a disaster recovery plan might seem daunting, but a managed IT service provider can help you.
These are third-party service providers with IT and cybersecurity expertise that can support you with your various IT needs, including system monitoring, troubleshooting, and strategy.
An IT service provider can help you conduct a comprehensive audit of your law firm’s systems and identify potential vulnerabilities.
Then, they can help you develop an appropriate disaster recovery plan to get your business back up and running. IT service providers can also help you develop strategies to prevent cybersecurity disasters from happening.
