Since Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi, I’ve been reviewing the precautions I take to protect my family, belongings and business. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I would grab if I had limited time to evacuate. The magnitude of the disaster also made me rethink what additional steps to take to protect my business assets.

Some people initially compared the ravages of the hurricane to the devastation of the 9/11 attacks. As someone who helped lawyers in offices near the World Trade Center within the first month, I’m keenly aware there’s a big difference between the havoc wreaked by the terrorists and the damage caused by nature. Lower Manhattan was primarily a business area; people who worked there lived elsewhere. As a result, they could set up temporary offices at home, forward their phone number and move their computer. In contrast, many lawyers (and everyone else for that matter) in Louisiana and Mississippi lost both their home and office.

In the aftermath of 9/11, a group of legal technology consultants banded together to offer pro bono assistance to lawyers (primarily small firms because the larger ones for the most part already had disaster plans in place and had greater resources) to get them back in business.

Using the same model, many of the same consultants are providing assistance to lawyers in hurricane ravaged areas. Through a combination of volunteers and a heroic effort by Ross Kodner of Microlaw and Dale Tincher of Consultwebs, a website was established, helpkatrinalawyers.org, as a central source of information for attorneys as they begin to seek help restarting their practice. Lawyers wanting to help those needing legal services to deal with such matters as insurance agreements can sign up on the American Bar Association’s website, abanet.org/katrina.

The Louisiana Bar estimated at least one third of all New Orleans lawyers were unable to either access their office or find a way to resume their practice. And a huge number of individuals and businesses in the affected areas undoubtedly will need disaster related legal services. Lawyers, vendors, bar association practice management advisers and legal technology consultants have joined to assist attorneys resume their practice and provide those desperately needed services.

Early questions

To date, there have only been a few inquiries. One came from a New Orleans attorney who was able to move his computers from his office to his home, was able to run the programs on them but needed assistance setting up a network at home to connect his computer to his secretary’s. He also requested donations of various computer parts such as keyboards, monitor, mice and speakers.

Another early inquiry came from a sole practitioner temporarily located in Huntsville, Ala. Her server had been in several feet of water for an unknown time and she sought advice about whether data from the drive could be salvaged.

With the massive relocation of people from New Orleans, one of the first tasks has been to contact the U.S. Postal Service to ensure mail will reach these attorneys in their new, hopefully temporary locations. Several consultants suggested firms keep a current accounts receivable list from their billing system so they can collect money for work already done to help tide them over while displaced. The only flaw with this advice is the distinct possibility the people from whom you intend to collect also are displaced.

Reaching staff

During and immediately following a disaster, it is important to be able to reach all your staff and ensure they’re safe and sound. For small offices, each employee should have the others’ home and cell phone numbers recorded into their own cell phone for quick contact. Of course, this assumes cell towers are still standing. Backup communications such as text messaging and phone cards for pay phones were useful Sept. 11. Similarly, forwarding business telephones to home locations should be done as quickly as feasible.

One of the hidden benefits of e-mail, particularly if you have your own domain name and e-mail addresses tied to it, is that it can easily follow you. While it pales in comparison, I recently was without internet access in my office for several days. Fortunately, I had recently replaced my old cell phone and failing Palm Pilot with a new Palm Treo 650 cell phone. I was able to monitor and respond to critical e-mail through my telephone. I realized this now is an important part of my backup system in the event of a disaster. If needed, it also would allow me to see what client engagements were scheduled and would allow me, if I were a litigator, to contact adversaries to change deadlines (once they had forwarded their office phones and were reachable). A spare battery for the phone is on my shopping list for obvious reasons.

The most difficult issue right now is getting people with the right technical skills to the offices of lawyers who need assistance. The first inquirers have been able to access the internet, enabling them to reach the aid sites established by the group of consultants and those set up by bar associations with offers of legal assistance and other resources. Remote access tools such as Gotomypc.com, Logmein, Webex, Placeware and GotoMeeting will allow those of us around the country to assist with reinstalling and configuring software as well as providing remote training for any new applications the lawyers purchase.

Avoiding disasters

Previous columns have dealt with the “what to buy” aspects of equipping an office. In light of the hurricanes, I’ll focus on related steps to avoid disasters.

When purchasing equipment, make sure there’s adequate insurance to cover replacement. Contents insurance is equally important if much of your client related information is still on paper. Unless you’re in a two or three person operation (and sometimes even that size office may need more infrastructure depending on the workload), you should have a dedicated server — that’s a computer with a larger hard drive that’s not used as a workstation to centrally store documents and data. The advantages of a server are that it can be configured with multiple hard drives that each have a copy of the firm’s data (mirroring) and can be pulled out (hot swapping) when you need to flee your office in an emergency. Servers also are designed with higher quality, less faultprone components. Also take along at least the latest backup tape and a copy of the backup software so you can restore your data onto a new computer if necessary.

While we still haven’t achieved the truly paperless office, we’re noticeably closer than a decade or two ago. Having had my own law office technology consulting firm more than 15 years, I’ve accumulated a large number of documents and records, both on paper and computer. Thankfully, much of the critical information for continuing to run my business is now in digital format.

For nearly 10 years, I’ve used Time Matters to store my contact list, projects or matters, calendar, tasks, documents, phone records and e-mail. For the past two years, I’ve also used the Billing Matters addition to manage my firm’s timekeeping and billing. As with other case management programs, Time Matters allows me to synchronize my data to my laptop and carry most of the key information (contacts, cases, to-do’s and events) on my Palm based phone. An inexpensive USB hard drive also can be good additional backup and is especially easy to carry since most will fit in a pocket.

Scanning

I try to scan most of the notes I take at clients’ offices and documents I receive by mail, so they’re also digital and stored on my network server’s hard drive. If your firm doesn’t have a scanner, consider it one of the most important steps in preventing a total disaster. Remember, while the news has been full of hurricanes, there are many more mundane types of disasters that occur with greater frequency. Office floods, fires and extended power outages are much more common than category 3 hurricanes.

Now that most of us have high speed internet access, the potential for high speed off site backup is possible. (If you don’t have high speed internet, get it yesterday!) There are many services available, but do your homework to ensure the company you’re sending your data to has taken sufficient precautions and is financially stable to still be there the day you must restore your data. I’m reminded about a Los Angeles attorney who had his paper files stored in a vault under one of the L.A. freeways until it collapsed in an earthquake.

There’s much good material on the internet about preparing for disasters. From my standpoint, the most important tasks are thinking about and listing the steps to take regarding phone numbers, policy numbers and other critical information, keeping it current and remembering to take it with you each night. The most prepared people are those who assume each time they leave their office they may not be able to return for an extended time.

Carol L. Schlein is president of Law Office Systems in Montclair, a training and consulting firm specializing in law firm automation. Copies of her previous columns are on losinc.com, which also lists upcoming meetings and training classes. For information, e-mail info@losinc.com or check the website. Schlein formerly chaired the Computer and Technology Division of the ABA Law Practice Management Section and can be reached at carol@losinc.com.