To all those affected by the recent string of natural disasters, CloudLex offers its support. These unfortunate events have left a path of devastation in their wake, leading to significant consequences for many individuals and we lend our prayers to those in need.
While preservation of life and home is of utmost importance, many people have also experienced devastating losses to their livelihoods.
Because law firms are largely stationary and data-heavy, they are particularly susceptible to damages from natural disasters like fires, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes (as well man-made disasters, like the data breach at Equifax).
Although natural disasters can be unpredictable, that doesn’t mean you should leave your firm’s future to chance. Understanding the risks of data loss, and how to mitigate against them in the event of a disaster, can help save your firm’s reputation and, ultimately, its bottom line thus providing your firm with the best cloud storage can go a long way in ensuring that.
What harm can natural disasters pose to your law firm?
The main and most obvious risk to law firms from natural disasters is data loss. When disaster strikes, data can easily disappear—files can be burned, the equipment can be flooded, documents can be blown away—the scenarios are endless. And this type of large-scale data loss can lead to severe consequences for your firm.
Data loss is costly. In addition to significant recovery costs, victims of data loss expose themselves to steep HIPAA penalties and potential litigation should the aggrieved patients choose to sue.
Not to mention if your data loss goes public, it could lead to irreparable harm to your firm’s reputation and viability. Perhaps most damaging, data loss can also adversely impact the status of your clients’ cases, causing them to suffer severe financial hardships.
You already do everything you can to protect your clients, you should do the same to protect their data.
How to prevent data loss from natural disasters
The best way to defend against natural (or man-made) disasters is to be prepared. A proactive approach to data loss means putting the right legal technology and plan of action in place prior to a disaster occurring.
Here are some tips that can help you limit the damage to your firm’s data before it’s too late.
Switch to the cloud
When it comes to disaster recovery, cloud-based solutions are a better alternative than on-premise centers or case management software. Documents in the cloud are not susceptible to fire or flood.
Cloud solutions are infrastructure-light; translation: recovery is easier because there are no large capital expenditures to replace equipment.
Because your data is maintained on servers across the country, the impact is severely lessened when a disaster hits locally. Plus your data rests on top-tier servers that are secure and constantly monitored for potential threats.
And if a disaster should occur, your cloud solutions company can handle any disaster recovery so your IT staff can focus on servicing your clients.
Use external hard drives
Remember paper is your enemy. Thus for data protection, backup your data regularly on hard drives, large capacity thumb drives, and other external storage devices—so that if disaster strikes, you can easily move your data to a safe and secure location.
Relocate physical data
No matter how proactive you are, there will always be some physical data (e.g. paper documents, Bankers Boxes, Redwelds) in your possession. It’s important to get this data to a secure location. Pick a designated safe spot ahead of time, as you will likely have little to no warning before disaster strikes.
Delegate power elsewhere
Your law firm should designate an attorney at a remote, centralized location to act as a representative on behalf of your firm. This individual is a point of contact and solely responsible for all client correspondence during a state of emergency.
Also read: How to Seamlessly Migrate Your PI Practice to the Cloud-Based Legal Software
How can CloudLex protect your firm’s data in case of disaster?
CloudLex is a cloud-based legal platform, meaning it stores your data digitally (where the elements can’t reach) and requires minimal infrastructure, i.e. it’s disaster-proof.
CloudLex is designed so your firm doesn’t skip a beat internally, no matter what’s going on outside. Our backup process is tailored to the recommendations and results we’ve identified as part of our repeated Business Impact Analyses.
Not to mention, our servers are HIPAA compliant and hosted by Microsoft—meaning your data is secure from all kinds of threats, natural or man-made. Thus it is undoubtedly the best cloud storage solution for lawyers.
Also read: Collaborate Seamlessly from Anywhere with These 5 New Legal Software Applications
If you’d like to be confident in your approach to natural disasters, let one of our team members fill you in on the details. After all, you don’t want to leave the safekeeping of your data to chance.
