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Bar News - January 3, 2003 Dealing with Disaster By: Lisa Segal NHBA Midyear Meeting CLE addresses disaster prevention and recovery planning for law firms. FIRE RIPPED THROUGH the Manchester law firm of Grossman, Tucker, Perreault & Pfleger this summer, leaving little more than the office's brick walls in its wake. All but a few paper files and some electronic data was destroyed by the blaze. In May of 1994, the Chichester office of the Twomey & Sisti law firm was also gutted by fire. The vast majority of the firm's hard copy and electronic files were lost. Neither of these firms had formal disaster prevention or recovery plans in place, making the fires all the more devastating. An informal survey of several NH law firms, both large and small, shows that many firms do not have in place measures to mitigate the effects of a fire, flood or other natural disaster or the sudden death of an attorney. To address this issue, the NHBA CLE Department is offering a provocative and informative program, "Disaster Prevention and Relief for Law Firms," at the Bar's Midyear Meeting Jan. 24. The program will provide a practical guide to minimizing the impact of a disaster and to avoiding business interruption and loss in the wake of catastrophic events, ranging from physical damage to the sudden death of a partner. NHBA 2003 Midyear Meeting under "Meetings & Events" to register. Just six months after Grossman, Tucker, Perreault & Pfleger opened its doors in an Elm Street brick office building, the firm found itself scrambling to recover from a devastating fire - the work of an as-yet-unidentified arsonist. Although most of its hard-copy files were lost, some of the firm's electronic files were backed up and hard drives were partially recovered from the firm's CPUs, according to partner Teresa C. Tucker, who will be on the faculty panel of the disaster planning CLE. But rebuilding what was lost has been a long, difficult process. Copies of some paper documents were obtained from clients and foreign associates of the IP firm, while others were public documents available through the U.S. Patent Office. Obtaining these documents has come at a great cost, Tucker said. "We went to a lot of expense getting duplicates." Dealing with their insurance provider continues to be an ongoing process. Tucker said her firm has learned what kind of coverage it's important for a law firm to have considering its unique business needs. "We don't have inventory per se like other businesses, so our needs are different," she said. Rebuilding after the fire took about "three to four months of round-the-clock work," according to Tucker. "It took team work, help from our contacts in the community, prioritizing and a lot of hours so that not one item was overlooked, no date was missed, no ball dropped." Grossman, Tucker has been able to gradually recover from the catastrophe without losing any clients, Tucker said. The law firm has since moved into a new 4,000-square-foot space on Commercial Street in Manchester and has expanded from five to six attorneys. Grossman, Tucker, Perreault & Pfleger now has a detailed disaster plan in place. The firm has a more sophisticated back-up system for its computers, more hard-copy information is stored off-site, and e-mail is now backed up, which it wasn't before. The firm's insurance coverage is being updated. Also, most of Grossman, Tucker's attorneys now carry electronic organizers in which they maintain client contact information, rather than relying solely on information kept at the office. Tucker estimates that the majority of NH law firms do not have disaster prevention and recovery plans, and speaks from experience when she urges lawyers to attend the disaster planning CLE as a first step in establishing such plans. Her words of wisdom: "It could happen to you." Mark Sisti of Twomey & Sisti, who will also sit on the CLE faculty panel, said that his firm had "no perfected plan, no forethought" as to how to prevent or recover from disaster when fire destroyed the firm's two-story Chichester office eight years ago - also an unsolved arson. The vast majority of its hard-copy documents were destroyed, and the firm had limited electronic back-up files. "What we had after the fire was a matter of luck," Sisti said. "It was devastating." The firm had other office locations to temporarily relocate to, where it began the rebuilding process. The firm set out to recover as many documents as possible from police departments, courts and its other offices, which had some backup. "We did it with great difficulty. It was an expensive and time-consuming process," said Sisti. Twomey & Sisti ended up rebuilding on the same site as its first Chichester office. The firm now has a comprehensive disaster plan in place, the main component of which is backing up files off site, both electronic and paper, as well as installing fireproof safes for some storage. Like Tucker, Sisti encourages attorneys without a plan in place for dealing with catastrophe to attend the CLE for valuable pointers on how to establish one. He referred to his firm's brush with disaster, saying "You never know when something like this is going to happen."
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