Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink
Are law firms more or less prepared for disasters than other businesses? This question was posed to me in a recent interview.
My response is that I don't think any place is really prepared. We think we are, but I'm pretty sure most of us actually are not.
The advice that experts dole out regarding the aftermath of an earthquake, for example, is to make sure you have fresh water. You can go without food for three weeks, but you can go without water for only three days. Some of us do stockpile water, but the problem is that we don't realize, or we forget, that water gets old and stale. It is important to continually renew that supply, and we don't generally.
When some natural disaster happens, the first thing my wife does is fill the bathtubs with water. When she first did that, I thought she was crazy. Then I learned that she was really smart because water is very important. However, I don't know that any law firm has water as a top issue in their lexicon of thoughts.
During a roundtable meeting with law firm management partners, the discussion turned to earthquakes and fires. Some of the firms were prepared to get their people out of the building successfully. But forgotten in this plan was how to get the people back to work. What if the transportation system is knocked out like it was in the Northridge earthquake? Is there a system set up so that the firm can get its employees back to work on a daily basis?
Of course, you can go on and on and on. You can drive yourself crazy thinking about possible scenarios. But if you have a group within the firm that is thinking about recovery planning, it will deal with the most important issues.
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