Disaster management #2: When nightmares come true

Deadly earthquakes in Christchurch and floods in Queensland and Victoria have forced law firms to put their disaster-management plans into action, write Penny Langfield and Cameron Cooper

When disaster strikes, the priority for any business must be to focus on the survival and safety of their workers.

Once the immediate danger passes, however, more routine business concerns come back on to the agenda, with law firms being compelled to either dust off contingency plans or make them up.

The tasks can be significant. Employees and clients must be contacted. Temporary offices may need to be established. And IT backup measures have to be activated. In short, the show must go on - as firms in New Zealand and Australia have discovered in the face of devastating earthquakes and floods in recent months.

In the firing line
The disaster-management plans of trans-Tasman firm Duncan Cotterill have been put to the ultimate test following dual earthquakes in Christchurch - a 7.1-magnitude quake which hit the city last September, and the deadly follow-up quake in February from which the final death toll is expected to top 200.

Janice Fredric, CEO of Duncan Cotterill, has given a moving personal account of her experiences as a result of the quakes (see separate story). Now describing the September quake as a mere "warm up", she says such disasters deliver fundamental lessons for any organisation.

Fredric says while firms need to have basic plans in place for a crisis, they should never discount the importance of flexibility.

"You never know what you're going to get and what the impact is going to be and you try to plan for for everything, but there are always little twists and turns," she says.

Back across the Tasman in Queensland, severe flooding caused about three-quarters of the state to be declared a disaster zone in January. Almost 12,000 homes were inundated with floodwater in and around Brisbane, and many businesses were caught in the drama.

The Brisbane office of Davies Collison Cave is in the inner-city suburb of Milton, one of the areas hardest hit in the floods.

Partner Leon Allen says the main job in the initial stages of the disaster was to evacuate staff.

"What I was concerned about is that our office is quite proximal to the river and that people may get stranded in the office," he explains. "You'd get sick of eating crackers and drinking warm beer after a while because that's all that's there."

At the height of the flood, the office was marooned, but all employees had got out.

Firms such as Flower and Hart and Mallesons Stephen Jaques, based in the CBD, were also evacuated.

Flower and Hart recently held a seminar to share its tales from the flood, including having to carry two computer servers down 16 flights of stairs to protect data.

Nell McKay, risk manager at Flower and Hart, wrote the firm's business continuity plan, but her house was inundated in the floods and she was not able to implement it. This was a good litmus test for the plan, she says.

"One of the strengths of the plan was basically I was out of action for the two weeks and it operated perfectly without me ... As a command structure it's very role based, so if someone is unavailable someone else is automatically delegated to pick up their role."

Technology to the fore
In the early stages of the flood evacuation at Flower and Hart, all staff were sent home, phones were diverted to staff members' mobile phones, a pre-written bulk email was sent to clients, and the firm's website was updated for clients and staff with logistical information.

However, the computer servers were still in the building and electricity had been cut, meaning that no one could access the server remotely. Although the business continuity plan had factored in power failures affecting the back-up servers, staff decided to get the servers out of the office. This involved four strong employees carrying two servers down stairs.

Back in New Zealand, Fredric encountered a similar problem at Duncan Cotterill after the September quake. She had to go into the building after the quake and turn the servers back on as they stopped working when there was a blackout. As aftershocks continued to rock the city, the computer server was continually disrupted and eventually had to be moved to an external data centre. Fredric says the server will stay out of the head office in the event of other quakes.

"We're strengthening some of our IT recovery things," she says. "We are leaving the main servers down at the data centre. We think that's a really good idea."

Computer servers were not an issue at Mallesons in Brisbane, but the firm had to deal with the inconvenience of employees being locked out of their office for about two weeks as building repairs took place. Lawyers working remotely and in temporary offices formed the core of the emergency response plan.

Carolynne Lepp, head of business services and security risk at Mallesons, says most staff were able to log on to the server and work from home if they had electricity, but not all tools were available. Variable internet speeds proved a hassle for some staff, while some had even forgotten how to log on remotely. A technology assistance line helped.

"Even though we give everyone access, it's dependent on what equipment they have at home as to how effective they can be," Lepp explains.

Power blackouts represented a big challenge for firms as they tried to keep business flowing. At Davies Collison Cave, Allen recalls that low batteries on mobile phones hindered communication efforts. He says staff gathered at houses that had power to charge phones and laptop batteries. Such communication tools aside, Allen also advises firms to keep all staff records current.

"You really need up-to-date records of all staff and you need mobile phone numbers ... In an emergency that's probably going to be your best line of communication."

Staying in touch
Keeping staff updated about pay and the disaster strategy as it unfolded proved crucial for Davies Collison Cave. While the Brisbane office has only 10 staff, the firm ensured it informed the wider employee base about their colleagues' welfare.

"Immediately we told staff that we'd be paying them special leave so they didn't have to worry about their financial position and we let the other staff know that so they didn't think  we were a miserable mob of so and sos."

Allen says the firm's disaster response was "relatively seamless" and it is now looking to plan for other disasters; for example, what it would do if the Melbourne headquarters was out of action.

Cloud computing and communications trees can come to the fore in a crisis. The latter were central to Duncan Cotterill's emergency response as it managed a large team of employees.

"We already had communication trees set up so that we could contact everyone," Fredric explains. "Every week we emailed the key people on the crisis management team staff contact details so we could, from home, ring people directly."

This meant everyone was personally checked on and informed of the business's progress.

Fredric says it is also important to help employees deal with any associated trauma as a result of a disaster. The biggest concern for staff has been about children and the elderly and counselling has been available to all staff.

Coordinating a large body of staff was also a logistical feat for the Brisbane branch of Mallesons. It used a spread sheet to keep track of about 80 employees based in the Brisbane office. Lepp says managing staff was the most stressful aspect of the disaster response.

"We had every person in a spread sheet saying how they'd been affected, did they need help. (We were) getting teams of our people together who couldn't work from home or didn't have the work to do to help with the recovery for our staff and their local communities," she explains.

Planning for the worst
At Mallesons, the priorities in the early stages of the crisis were communication and organising temporary offices. Lepp advises that creating an emergency response plan with a temporary authority hierarchy helps get messages to staff and clients in a timely fashion. "If you're still stumbling around trying to get approvals and authorities, it just takes too long."

Flower and Hart originally set up its business continuity plan when fears about a pandemic such as swine flu were rife. Researching the plan included exploring possible incidents and their impact, plus determining the critical business elements.

"For example, for us our first critical business function is providing legal service to our clients on existing matters," McKay explains.

The firm's plan included a kit for each employee to take home which had emergency stationery such as letterheads and cheques, a copy of the business continuity plan and the communications plan, and contact details.

The plan also included the provision to set up a temporary office. This worked in conjunction with some staff managing their workload from home offices, if they had appropriate equipment.

"As part of our plan we have a register of each staff member and exactly what equipment they've got at home to know whether someone is able to scan and email stuff or fax stuff or print stuff or what internet access they have."

McKay advises firms preparing a business continuity plan to ensure it is practical and short. It should have clearly defined roles with specific duties that anyone can pick up. Contact details relevant to each role should be embedded into the plan.

"It's set up as a checklist for each role so somebody just has to say ‘right, I'm in that role, I pick up this checklist and bang have I done that, bang have I done this'."