Hurricane Florence viewed from the International Space Station. Photo via NASA.

As North and South Carolina brace for Hurricane Florence, law firm CIOs and lawyers say preparation and practice for inclement weather are key in protecting client data and law firm tech.

Hurricane Florence made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane Friday morning in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, near the North Carolina-South Carolina border. Hurricane Florence's size and sluggish track up the East Coast could cause harsh and expensive damage to homes and businesses, according to media reports. Approximately half a million homes and businesses, mostly in North Carolina, were without power, The Associated Press reported Thursday morning.

David Worth, CIO of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, which has multiple offices in North and South Carolina in Hurricane Florence's projected path, held daily phone conferences with managing partners of possibly affected offices, the CFO, network personnel and administrative staff to verify all were on the same page leading up to the hurricane.

Nelson Mullins closed its Raleigh, North Carolina, office Friday. Nelson Mullins' Myrtle Beach and Charleston, South Carolina, offices were closed Thursday and Friday.

Worth, however, isn't worried about IT disruption, noting that the firm's 2006 switch to the cloud has paid off. “The office could get wiped out, but as long as they have their laptops and [internet] access, they can work.”

Worth said the firm doesn't have to back up its cloud data “per se,” but they do provide physical protection against any possible damage to its servers and if office spaces are severely damaged, the firm can place employees in a hotel or in one of the firm's other offices.

Joseph Lazzarotti, privacy, e-communication and data security practice co-lead at Jackson Lewis's Morristown, New Jersey, office, said preparing a firm for inclement weather has to be developed and practiced beforehand to best safeguard client data. Also, firms should assess what natural disasters are most likely to happen in their office's region.

“A firm wants to do an assessment [of] what type of disasters are most likely to hit us,” Lazzarotti said. 

Worth said Nelson Mullins' coastal Carolina office locations and the common occurrence of hurricanes factored into the firm's reasoning to not store a great deal of IT hardware in those offices. When the Myrtle Beach office was closed, the IT infrastructure was shut down remotely, he added.

CIOs echoed that business continuity plans are necessary and internet access is paramount in allowing lawyers and staff to work remotely and safely.  Dennis Van Metre, Vinson & Elkins chief information officer, said his firm doesn't store any critical or sensitive client data on the cloud, but instead hosts data on servers based in Dallas and Houston data centers that they “isolate” from the Vinson & Elkins' network. The firm automatically switches from Houston to Dallas data centers every six months.

Similarly, Akerman CIO Danny Rhinehart said in an email that Akerman updates and regularly tests a secondary data center. “The data center is our fallback in the event of business interruption. We also have an internal crisis management team and a 'tested' business continuity plan for each office that we put into place, depending on the need, and we use an emergency notification system for communication to personal devices.”

The CIOs also expressed that personal assistance after the storm is important as well. Noting Hurricane Ike's 2008 destruction that cost an estimated $34.8 billion to repair, Van Metre noted that Vinson & Elkins opened a daycare in its office because schools were not open.

“You have to take people into account, that's the first priority. You have to offer to relocate family and not just the individual.”