Houston-based technology providers as well as law firms bothlarge and small with offices in the region appear to have beenlargely able to keep operations going as flood waters crippled muchof the city.

Despite Hurricane Harvey, law offices and legal sectorbusinesses used remote operations and advanced technology, thoughmany of their employees could not temporarilyreach downtown offices.

Related: 7 tips to speed business insurance recoveries fromHurricane Harvey

Prepared ahead of time

It was essential, they said, that the businesses and firmsprepared ahead of time. For example, Tracee Whitley, Norton RoseFulbright's U.S. chief of operations, says that "days ahead of thestorm, we asked our Houston-based … personnel to take home theirassigned laptops and confirm remote connectivity to avoidlast-minute support issues."

"We reached out to colleagues in our offices both in the U.S.and globally to make sure that they would be available to provideadditional resources for support functions. We also gave advancenotice to our disaster recovery co-location facility and ouroff-site help desk provider regarding possible impacts of thestorm," Whitley added. "We kept in contact with the buildingmanagement company regarding status of the physical space andservices." No system outages or significant support issues wereraised, according to Whitley.

In addition, the firm's office incident management team, whichconsists of senior partners as well as representatives frommultiple business services departments, participated in dailystatus calls covering personnel impacts and businesscontinuity.

Daily updates, automated alert system

"We used emails, automated alerts and intranet postings toprovide daily updates across the firm," Whitley said. "Being ableto account for all of our people through our automated alert systemwas extremely valuable, as their safety is our top priority."

Similarly, Tim Armstrong, chief operating officer at Vinson& Elkins, says the firm has "fully redundant data centershousing all firm systems, including telecom, so we don't require aphysical office to function."

"We never had any system compromised," he added. "We did seeremote access escalate dramatically during the event, but we areengineered to support a very high level of remote activity via VPN[virtual private network] and VDI [virtual desktop infrastructure]technologies. They all performed as expected."

Related: How HR can help following disaster

Armstrong also noted the firm has what he describes as a "verydetailed, and well-maintained, BCP [business continuity plan]/DR[disaster recovery] plan that we developed after Tropical StormAllison in 2001, and we follow that plan with any named storm inthe Gulf [of Mexico]. We started taking action to prepare as soonas Harvey was announced."

"That plan addresses staging key staff in specific locations,reminders to firm personnel about remote access, etc., so they areprepared for being out of the office for an extended period oftime," he explained.

Sample communications prepared ahead of time

Whitley also noted that it's beneficial to have "samplecommunications prepared ahead of time. I would emphasize theimportance of having communication content drafted for varyinglevels of impact, from minimal [a delayed opening or half-dayclosure] to significant [days or weeks of impact]."

"Business continuity is achievable by having early and frequentcommunication, established remote working policies and procedures,prepared systems and resource coverage and a cross-training of keyIT functions," Whitley said. "Our people who were not affected byHarvey continued to work remotely. With today's technology, theproductivity of a lawyer or business services professional is notdependent upon being in the office."

Related: Is your small business prepared for adisaster?

Armstrong said that "over the past year or so we have alsotransitioned to many teleworking roles for administrative personnelacross many areas. This helped tremendously. We had no materiallapse in any process. All material operational roles were covered —from technical support and training, to billing, to completingpayroll functions and preparing for month end — when the stormhit."

In addition, the firm's lawyers "were able to support ourclients with no interruption, and firm operations continued as allwould expect," Armstrong said.

Remote network connection to service clients

This planning for disruption extended to the legal technologyworld. Shaun Cutter, chief technology officer for Epiq, saidthe company's Houston office has over 100 employees and a documentreview center, but "our center was briefly unreachable due to floodwaters."

Related: Nationwide survey reveals small-business ownerslack a disaster recovery plan

"While the office itself lost a physical connection to thenetwork, employees were able to get into systems remotely andcontinue to service our clients. No team was ever without access tocritical systems," Cutter explained.

Execute business continuity plan

The company had a business continuity plan in place and executedit. "Matters were moved around our platform based on criticalclient deadlines," Cutter said. "Timely, frequent and pragmaticcommunication with clients and employees is a must and occurredregularly."

When asked about the hurricane, Shahzad Bashir, president andCEO of Morae Global Corp., stressed that a major disaster is notthe time to initially use such technology.

He explained that technology needs to be "built into theday-to-day behavior and processes," as well as strategy of a firmor company. For instance, lawyers can often use video conferencingrather than always taking jets to meetings, as many transactionscan be done without physical contact.

His company also spreads storage and technology across the U.S.,ensuring through decentralization that "we don't have a singlepoint of failure," he said.

Lessons from Harvey disaster

Cutter identified some lessons for other organizations from thedisaster. These include:

1. It is critical to have a business continuityplan in place in advance, and regularly test it. The BCP shouldinclude a prenegotiated contract/agreement with a physicalrestoration company dealing with office space and physical items,including paper and physical records.

2. The RM strategy should include a vitalrecords program that identifies not only critical systems but vitaldata/physical records and a strategy for dispersal (physical andvirtual) to ensure any localized catastrophe will not wipe out anorganization's ability to protect its rights and meet itsobligations.

Related: 4 ways to prevent business interruption from anatural disaster

3. Any major organization needs geographicdiversity, so primary and backup data centers should be indifferent locations. For instance, Epiq has thousands of milesbetween primary and backup data centers.

4. In Houston, the amount of flooding wasunusually high so service was lost from electrical providers. So,data centers should be self-dependent in energy production. Theamount of water that fell was over the height of most dieselgenerators—many stopped working. Data centers with generators onthe building's roof, rather than at ground level, would have had agreater chance of working.

And then, of course, there is the attitude of employeesthemselves. Despite the severity of the natural disaster, Bashirpraised the region's wider response to the hurricane and tragicflooding.

"We as a community have really responded well," he said."Technology has played a huge part … through the crisis."

Ed Silverstein ([email protected]) isa veteran freelance writer and and editor for magazines, websitesand newspapers. He writes frequently for ALMMedia's LegalTech News.A graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, he has wonseveral awards for his published articles.