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Disaster Planning and Recovery
There’s no time like the present to plan for the future – and no better time to build in systems that will protect your practice and your clients in the event of an unexpected disaster.

Disaster can strike a practice in many different ways – personal disaster in the form of sudden illness, death, incapacity or impairment, or catastrophic loss due to theft, flood, wildfire or tornado.

Foresight and planning by all lawyers in active practice, regardless of your practice setting or your career stage, can minimize the impact of these events. Basic planning should include making proper backups, ensuring storage of records outside of the office in a secure location, retaining emergency contact lists and maintaining adequate and proper insurance coverage.

Even without the urgency of natural disasters, it is prudent to take some basic steps to protect your clients’ interests, as well as your livelihoods, in the case of an unexpected event. This contingency planning can make all the difference down the road.

We offer the following advice and resources to assist lawyers in dealing with proactive contingency planning and retroactive disaster recovery efforts.

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact the Practice Advisors if you have any further questions.  Practice Management counsel are also available for practice and operational issues.

Resources

Guide to Safeguarding your Practice

Disaster Recovery Action Plan

When Bad Things Happen to Good Lawyers: A Contingency Planning Guide

Government of Alberta Emergency Information

PracticePRO: Managing Practice Interruptions

ASSIST (Alberta Lawyers Assist)

Inventory Sheets

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What can I do once a disaster has taken place?

Review the Disaster Recovery Action Plan, which provides suggested steps to take in restoring your practice. Our Practice Advisors are available to assist you with confidential and professional advice on recovery efforts and any other legal, ethical and practice concerns, especially in this time of great need. The Practice Advisors can be reached at 1.866.440.4640 (toll free) or 587.390.8462. Practice Management legal counsel are also available for any practice management and operational issues. They can be reached at 1.800.661.9003.

My files and documents are damaged or destroyed. What can I do?

Review the Disaster Recovery Action Plan, which provides suggested steps to take in restoring your practice. Also see the PracticePro link for more information on dealing with damaged files and recovery. Document restoration may, however, be an expensive process and may not be necessary in every case. Your insurer may be able to direct you to some restoration companies, or you can search for local listings.

Burned documents:
While most of the other categories of documents can be salvaged, documents that have been turned black by fire may fall apart with slight handling. There are methods using specialized forensic techniques that can read carbonized images, but these are expensive and may not be readily available.

Partially burned but dry documents:
Partially burned documents that are dry may be cleaned using a soft brush to remove loose debris. For more information on this process see “Recovering Fire-damaged records.” Soot can be removed using a kneadable eraser (sold at art supply stores), but it is important not to apply pressure on paper that is actually charred. If you can’t work on these documents right away, they can be frozen (ideally after being vacuum-sealed or wrapped in greaseproof paper).

Partially burned but wet documents: 
Partially burned but wet documents need to be dried—but if you can’t attend to drying right away, investigate vacuum-sealing and freezing techniques. If vacuum-sealing is not available, you can wrap the papers in small bundles (not more than 1 to 2 cm thick) in greaseproof paper and lie them flat in a freezer.

Wet documents:
To start the process of drying wet documents, insert paper towels about every 2 cm to help absorb the moisture. You will have to replace the paper towels with dry ones as moisture is absorbed but put the new towels at different places in the document stack. Keep the humidity down in the room you are using to speed up the drying process and use a fan to gently move the air around.

Mould-prevention:
It is important to take steps to remove mould from documents exposed to water. A restoration company may be able to use desiccant air-dry systems as well as environmentally-friendly chemical cleaners. Other techniques that may aid in recovery of documents include ion-deodorizing and anti-fungal spraying. If destroying partially damaged files, please ensure that client confidentiality is maintained during the destruction process. We recommend, at a minimum, that you maintain a record of the files you have lost. A file inventory form is available here.

*Note: This summary was prepared based on articles by the National Archives of Australia entitled “Recovering Fire-Damaged Documents”, Polygon Group “Archive Preservation Water and Fire Damage” and by Data Storage Inc. “Fire Damaged Documents: Triage to Recovery”. Please consult these articles for more detailed information about recovering documents.

I cannot access my office. How can I gain access to my Trust Funds?

If you cannot access your office to obtain trust cheques to close your real estate deal, you may either wire funds or use other electronic payment options pursuant to Rule 119.42, or you may withdraw trust funds by way of a bank draft or money order pursuant to Rule 119.46 with prior notice to the Law Society. If a trust withdrawal is to be made by bank draft or money order, fill out the Bank Draft and Money Order form and maintain a copy in the clients file.

Approval of Trust transactions electronically

Rule 119.21(1), states that “all withdrawals and transfers from a trust account must be signed by a lawyer of the law firm, unless otherwise authorized by the Executive Director”.

  • An email confirmation, other electronic authorization or transfer document signed in compliance with Rule 119.22(2) by the lawyer can be accepted to approve the trust transaction (withdrawal or transfer).
  • The use of an electronic signature to approve or sign the transfer document is permitted by the lawyer. Lawyers should implement strong access and security controls over the use of their electronic signature, such as using a strong password and two-factor authentication.

Books and Records

  • Request bank statements and records (deposits slips, negotiated/cleared cheques etc) from financial institution. These documents can be used to recreate client ledgers and listing.
Printed from https://www.lawsociety.ab.ca on January 17, 2021 at 6:41:15 PM
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