Members recently discussed business continuity management, onboarding processes for new hires and more. Explore curated sources on these topics including some from ILTA’s treasure chest.
Business Continuity Oversight
The question about who manages business continuity and how seemed prescient after the downtime with Mimecast on Monday. Though not cataclysmic, it had a significant impact on legal business. To create or improve your business continuity plan review these ILTA resources. A recent ILTA webinar, “The Ins and Outs of DR and Business Continuity in Law Firms,” distinguishes disaster recovery as a subset of business continuity (BC) and covers the steps in developing a solid BC plan. The Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity ILTA Community uploaded a Business Continuity Plan template and the LegalSEC ILTA Community has a Risk Assessment Toolkit. When issues arise, possessing a team to communicate the issue, troubleshoot the problem, develop temporary workarounds and solve the problem can improve recovery quality and speed. In “Dream the Impossible Dream: A Unified Approach to Information Security,” read about who is involved in the development and protection of information and the importance of departments working as a team.
Onboarding New Attorneys and Staff
As a former law firm librarian, I fought for time on the new hire agenda. With 30 minutes, I taught some memorable tips and encouraged the new hire to call me for more training once settled. For a better onboarding experience, all departments must know what topics each covers so as not to repeat or omit. White paper article, “The Laterals Are Coming!,” and ILTACON session, “Joining Forces: How Firms Are Working Collaboratively Across Organizational Boundaries to Drive Performance,” suggests departments in an organization should communicate and collaborate for training and other untapped opportunities. Management support can also foster better onboarding. A member asked if other organizations use mentors or coaches, schedule follow-up training throughout the new hire’s first year and evaluate their onboarding process. Some large firms have improved the onboarding process as discussed in “Successful Lateral Integration in Law Firms.”
Something Extra –ILTACON Social Media Summary, and More
ILTA member, David Hobbie, put together a list of social media compilations from ILTACON 2015 including Frank Strong’s “39 Articles and Blog Posts Summarizing the 2015 #ILTACON” and Natalie Alesi’s “Hashtracking Report.”
After the ILTACON session “Legal Technology Innovation – Bolstering AND Destroying the Legal Profession,” many in the blogosphere shared their thoughts, concerns and hopes including Stuart Barr in “Is the Inexorable Advancement of Technology an Opportunity or a Threat for the Legal Profession?”
As ILTA’s content curator, I’m always monitoring the discussion forums to discover what topics are top-of-mind among the members. Each week, I focus on a few areas that spark your interest, and I provide some curated resources to assist your own information-gathering on the topics. If there are specific topics you would like assistance exploring, please contact me at joanne@iltanet.org.