The Unexpected..
♬ life can bring you down
creep up without a sound
yeah life can bring you down sometimes…♬
Lyrics, music and recorded by Sprung Monkey.
There is much talk in the media about the H1N1 virus. I think I was like most people in thinking it would be an inconvenience at worst – that is, until the first person I knew died from it. It is still early in the outbreak but I am now following the news announcements much more closely.
In terms of lawyers and law offices, this pandemic (I really don’t like that word since it seems too close to ‘panic’) stands to have a huge impact on offices and personnel. Since we are early in the flu season, it raises awareness to start preparing for the unexpected. The SARS epidemic is a good model to follow – where offices had to manage with restrictions on movement and gatherings. Law offices would be wise to ponder what would happen if large numbers of their staff were either incapacitated or looking after those at home who were. There there is the worst that could happen – permanently losing staff members who went down due to the virus and its complications.
LawPro has an excellent publication on their web site entitled: “Managing Practice Interruptions”.
In particular is the section on preparing for the unexpected, since life can bring you down sometimes.
Thanks Dave just updating our business continuity plan, any input from the legal community is greatly appreciated.
Last month at the Knowledge Workers Toronto meetup we had a talk by Graham Westwood of ProCarta about how to take a business process and distill it down into templated documents that can be customized for any given situation. He demonstrated how his company has done this with a business continuance pandemic control plan kit. The kit is available for purchase and is suitable for law firms and other organizations. From what I could see (having done some pandemic planning previously) it looks to hit the key areas including planning documents, checklists, communication documents, and even signage pointing to handwashing stations. All can be adapted for your organization, and pulls documents into a central location for when you need them. This is especially important if a lot of key people are off sick at any one time; anyone can dive into the kit and start using it if the documentation has been completed in advance.
Looks like their website is new and doesn’t have all the information posted yet, but has their contact info: http://www.procarta.com/. I haven’t looked at the kit closely so cannot vouch for quality, but might be worth a look. It could be a worthwhile jumpstart for anyone who hasn’t started planning yet.