Although many of the more prominent trends in IT to proliferate throughout the past few years have impacted a range of industries similarly, each business has to take a unique approach to management and deployment to get the job done correctly. Additionally, each industry will be impacted in at least some unique fashions by major trends, regardless of how consistent the technology is being used by individual firms given the differentiation between standards and best practices, as well as compliance.
In the realm of business continuity and disaster recovery, the only aspect shared among all companies regardless of industry or region is that a plan needs to be in place and plenty of technologies must be implemented to support the strategies. Law firms are increasingly seeing the value of expanding their recovery and continuity plans given the much higher volumes of digital assets being held in the sector today, and provide a strong example of how specialized programs can benefits companies more so than cut-and-paste approaches.
Continuity in law
Foley and Lardner LLP recently listed several suggestions for law firms in the United States that want to boost their resilience to outages and disruptions through the use of more advanced business continuity and disaster recovery strategies. In a high-stakes industry such as law, companies that fail to maintain strong continuity will run into a proverbial universe of issues over time, including the prospect of losing clientele for not being viewed as reliable.
What's more, legal issues can arise when outages begin to hold lawyers and other staff members from completing their tasks, especially when they are involved in litigation proceedings that rely upon constant availability and timely responses to opposing attorneys or the courts themselves. According to the law firm, when business continuity is at optimal levels of performance, negative legal exposure can be proactively mitigated by companies in this industry.
The source also pointed out that law firms will be less likely to properly and successfully handle cases when they cannot handle their own risk management needs, making this a core responsibility rather than an optimal addition to standing policies. Furthermore. Foley and Lardner LLP noted that the use of third-party disaster recovery services is growing today, and these can be especially advantageous for firms that do not have much experience in the relevant responsibilities and tasks.
Getting assistance
Any business that falls into as sensitive of an industry as law should always consider the prospect of leveraging managed services for their continuity and recovery needs, as taking a flippant approach can lead to significant increases in risk. Smaller law firms that do not have a robust IT department on payroll will likely benefit the most from these types of services, as they significantly reduce strain and disruption in one fell swoop.
Working with a provider that offers a range of recovery and continuity services can go a long way toward protecting businesses from the immense damages associated with long-term outages and data loss.