The Computerized Lawyer

Electronic Disaster Planning for Law Firms

By R. Timothy Muth

Law firms, like most modern businesses, depend upon electronic technology. They keep their financial records and client information in computer files. Electronic mail boxes contain communications with clients and others. Important documents are kept in word processing files.

This increasing dependence upon computers requires that law firms consider the consequences if their electronic information is suddenly no longer available. This article discusses how law firms can plan against electronic disasters so that computer mishaps are merely inconveniences and not tragedies.

Preventing disaster

The likelihood of an electronic disaster can be reduced by taking certain preventive steps. One type of disaster is unexpected voltage striking computer systems through power or phone lines. Such surges can come through lightning strikes and other natural or man-made causes. Electricity surges can wreak havoc with computer memory and magnetic storage. Less damaging, but still troublesome, are power losses in a blackout that may wipe out all current work on computers that had not yet been saved to a disk drive.

Electricity surge suppressors. To minimize the impact of too much or too little electric current, important computers, such as the firm's file servers, should be protected with surge suppressors and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. The surge suppressor is plugged in between the electrical outlet and the computer and has circuits that block sudden electrical current spikes. A surge suppressor usually consists of a strip of outlets, costs between $20 and $30, and can serve several devices at once. A UPS system is essentially a battery system that provides power in the event of a sudden blackout or other power loss. Costs for UPS systems can range from below $200 to more than $1,000 depending upon the number of hours of backup capacity. Some surge suppressors and UPS systems even come with monetary guarantees to repair damage caused by a system failure.

Hardware failure. Another type of disaster that may strike a firm's computer systems is a simple hardware failure. Computer components eventually fail or wear out. Perhaps the greatest risk here is the failure of a hard drive that may store hundreds and thousands of pages of data and client documents.

Computer manufacturers have designed systems that can almost eliminate the impact of a single hard drive failing. Such systems are said to be "fault tolerant." In these systems, every piece of data on the computer's drives is written in at least two different locations so that if one drive fails, the data is still available on the alternate drive. There are two primary types of fault tolerant systems - disk mirroring systems and RAID systems (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks).

In a disk mirroring system, all data written to one hard drive is written simultaneously to a second hard drive. If one drive fails, all of the data continues to be available on the mirror-image drive.

In a RAID system, all computer files are written across multiple hard drives. To take a simple example, if a computer file consists of the letters ABCDE, AB would be written on the first drive, BC on the second, CD on the third, DE on the fourth and EA on the fifth. Since each letter is written in two places, if a single drive fails no data is lost. Although fault tolerant systems are more expensive than standard personal computers, the added reliability of these systems frequently justifies the cost of $10,000 - $50,000 for the large system file servers that may contain the bulk of a firm's electronic data.

Despite the firm's best attempts to prevent an electronic disaster, there inevitably will be a hardware malfunction or a virus attack. Or a flood or fire may destroy the computer systems in the law office. In that event, it is important that the firm have a backup copy of its computer data.

Backup copy. Good disaster planning requires law offices to regularly backup the contents on the firms' computer hard drives. For a cost of $200 or less, tape drives for performing the backups and backup software are cheap insurance against electronic disasters. Most backup software is easy to use and allows the firm to automate and regularly schedule most of the tasks in copying all the firm's data. Backups should be performed nightly and backup tapes rotated to avoid the possibility of a defective tape. A good procedure would be to do a complete backup weekly and a nightly incremental backup of files that have changed since the last complete backup.

It is important that a firm's backup plan cover all of the computers in the firm. Individual attorneys and staff may keep important information on their desktop computers - information they would sorely miss if electronic disaster struck them. Make sure that the backup procedures cover all the firm's computers where irreplaceable data resides and not just central file servers.

Backup procedures can be tailored to the ways law firm staff use their computers. Computers connected to a network can have data copied from the local hard drive to the network drives which are then backed up on tape. A computer used only for word processing files might have that day's files simply copied onto a diskette at the end of the day. Alternatively, a portable tape drive can be moved from computer to computer in the office for backups.

If members of the firm use notebook computers, those computers also must be backed up. Notebook computers are subject to higher rates of hard drive failure than desktop computers and are common targets of theft. Although the thief may not be interested in the data on the hard drive, if the notebook is stolen, the information on the notebook is lost to the firm if the information has not been saved elsewhere. Yet, because notebook computers are mobile and frequently taken home or on trips by the attorneys using them, they may be overlooked in processing backups. Ask any lawyer who depends on her notebook computer what the impact of the loss of her computer would be. She will quickly see the need to participate in the firm's backup regimen for its computer assets.

Testing backup procedures. The firm's backup procedures should include periodically testing the backup tapes. The backups are of no use if, when they are needed, the tapes turn out to be defective. The best backup procedures will go to waste if the information cannot be retrieved from the backups.

Backup tapes should not be left at the law office. If the tapes are left sitting next to the computer when the backup is complete, a fire or flood that destroys the computer will destroy the backup. Arrange for backups to be stored away from the firm. Backups can be taken home by firm staff, kept where the firm has off-site file storage or deposited in a bank safety deposit box.

If disaster does strike, service companies exist that can help law firms recover data. Data recovery services will take malfunctioning, burned, disabled and abused disks and other storage devices and restore the data to the firm. Although such services can be expensive, they typically are able to recover a substantial percentage of data that was lost due to an electronic disaster. A search on the Yahoo directory on the Internet for "data recovery" will provide a listing of many companies working in this area.

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