New Orleans Law Firm Presents Strong Defense Amidst Hurricane Katrina
MessageOne Maintains Email for Adams and Reese LLP: Ensures Communications with Dispersed Employees and Clients After Hurricane Katrina
For many New Orleans-area businesses, the impact of Hurricane Katrina did not end with the last storm – the impact continued on afterwards as they grappled with how to secure employee safety and operate some semblance of a business amidst utter chaos. For the “AmLaw200” law firm of Adams and Reese, the ability to maintain email communications immediately after the hurricane proved to be a critical communications link that was a lifesaver for the staff and the business.
At Adams and Reese’s New Orleans office, the first signal that the hurricane was eminent was when the motion detectors were set off by powerful winds from Hurricane Katrina,violently shaking the building. Within minutes, the firm lost all power at 6 a.m. on Monday morning. However, thanks to strategic advance planning, CIO David Erwin had already initiated a failover the night before to MessageOne’s data center in Chicago. Safely ensconced at his sister’s house in Fort Worth, Texas, he had made a quick phone call to MessageOne to initiate failover. Minutes later, the firm had complete email and BlackBerry® continuity available for their employees through MessageOne’s EMS (Email Management Services) and they shut down their data center to prepare for the storm. With the law firm’s employees evacuated from New Orleans and dispersed among more than six different cities, email proved crucial for employee safety by allowing the firm to perform virtual roll call and keep track of where everyone was at a given time.
At the same time, Adams and Reese partners needed to stay in touch with clients and the more than 300 lawyers in its other offices in Birmingham, AL, Houston, TX, Jackson, MS, Memphis, TN, Nashville, TN and Washington, DC and assess the damage to its Mobile, AL office, also in the path of the hurricane.
Relocating to Baton Rouge
As the hurricane wreaked havoc that Monday throughout New Orleans and beyond, Adams and Reese relied on MessageOne’s EMS to help them coordinate an urgent real estate search in Baton Rouge for temporary office space. Adams and Reese partners used their BlackBerry devices to communicate with potential landlords and negotiate a lease on new temporary space in Baton Rouge, enabling them to quickly close the deal that same day.
Disaster Preparedness
The decision to plan for and implement a solution for email continuity began following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. Erwin decided to mitigate the risk for the firm by contracting an email continuity service for use during emergencies and other outages. Erwin enlisted the aid of MessageOne’s EMS for guaranteed email continuity to ensure that employees could continue to communicate during a disaster.
When Hurricane Katrina hit, Adams and Reese, which operates from the tallest building in New Orleans, had prepared its IT system for the storm’s onslaught with email continuity and a solid disaster recovery plan.
Surviving a Hurricane
Even though he was prepared with a disaster recovery plan, Erwin said that a hurricane’s full-potential might was unimaginable to many. “We always talked about a Category 5 hurricane coming; it was talk for 20 years. Sure enough, it turned out to be more risk versus reality, but it’s happened to us,” said Erwin. “The surprise is the extent of the damage and the things that people don’t think of – such as the people issues in attempting to continue to run a business after a hurricane. I think a Category 5 was modeled, but I don’t know too many people that thought it would be real,” said Erwin.
Communications is Key
According to Erwin, his email system was down for less than 15 minutes, which was key in the firm’s recovery. Erwin added, “The most important thing, if anything, is to have a way to communicate effectively in a disaster. It makes things go smoother because we had people all over the place. Our people were productive, they could communicate, and our clients could email us, have no problem getting to us, and that was important to continue business as normal as possible.”
As business returned to usual after the hurricane, Erwin switched his email systems back to the company’s recovery data center. A few weeks later, the firm reopened its Mobile, Alabama office. The New Orleans office was closed for several months, and many employees continued to work from multiple locations and from the firm’s temporary office in Baton Rouge. Because they had email service, employees were able to continue to work and communicate effectively, from wherever they were located.
Protection You Can Count On
After putting EMS and MessageOne through the ultimate test, the Adams and Reese team makes a solid case for the solution. MessageOne’s EMS Email Continuity ensures that email and BlackBerry services are always available. It provides immediate access to a fully integrated standby email system when a primary Microsoft Exchange® or Lotus Notes® email system fails. Unlike other high availability solutions, EMS is immune to database corruption and Windows viruses.
EMS can be activated in less than 60-seconds to provide any employee with full email, contacts, calendar entries, and BlackBerry access during an email outage. EMS ensures that email never bounces and that email system outages never evident to the outside world.
The Adams and Reese team knows that you can never underestimate the power of a hurricane and they learned that communications was key to recovery. The jury is still out on when, or if, the New Orleans area will experience another Katrina – but for Erwin and the Adams and Reese staffers the verdict is clear that being prepared is always the best offense.
View a PDF version of the Adams and Reese Case Study from Continuity Insights.
