Pandemic Planning Immediate and Near Term Action Items

1. Pandemic PlanningImmediate and Near Term Action Items Project Leadership Associates May 6, 2009 PLA confidential material. May not be copied or distributed without consent of PLA.

2. Our Organization PLA provides a broad range of business and technology solutions that address enterprise wide strategy, operations, applications and infrastructure challenges Multiple practice groups with specific subject matter expertise Infrastructure, Messaging, Unified Communications, Disaster Recovery, Software Development, Business Intelligence, Business Strategy, IT Consulting and Managed Services Is one of the fastest growing business and technology firms Inc. 5000 – PLA was ranked in the top 41 percent of the fastest private growing companies for the second consecutive year. Fast Growth 100, CRN Magazine – PLA was ranked #46 in its third year of being included on the list. Crain's Chicago Business Fast 50 – PLA was ranked #29 on the list of 50 fastest growing companies in Chicago area Is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois with branch offices in Dallas and Houston Is 75% employee-owned Has over 180 employees Leverages only experienced consultants

3. Consultant Warning:  ***DO NOT DO THIS!!!***

4. Agenda • Current Situation and Things to Know for Planning Purposes • Immediate Action Items • Near Term Action Items 4

5. Pandemic Planning is Just Different from Normal BC Planning It is important to understand that a business continuity plan will NOT necessarily address issues specific to pandemic planning Concurrent impact in multiple offices Significant employee outage Scale of technical infrastructure required to sustain a multi-office outage Must be handled at a Firm-wide level Reality check what your plan does or does not cover then adjust accordingly Create a plan if you don’t have one

6. Current Situation and Things to Know WHO Level 5 Threat Sustained human to human contact Imminent potential for global pandemic Level 6 means government can shut down all events or businesses that create a “public gathering” CDC Recommendations Stay home if you are sick Stay home 7 days after the onset of symptoms (10 days in children) or at least 24 hours after the last symptom is gone Consider closing schools/day care with one confirmed or suspected case of swine flu Stay closed for 14 days following the last confirmed case Containment through isolation Consider how the impact of this approach may impact your daily operations

7. Immediate Action Items Summary Establish a formal Pandemic Planning Team and get educated Reality check – remote access capabilities Educate office management on remote access capabilities Define and procure supplies

8. Immediate Action Items Establish a formal Pandemic Team if you don’t have a Business Continuity Team in place Administrative management (Exec Dir, COO) HR Director IT Facilities Marketing or Communications Group Labor/employment lawyer Role of Team Standardized communications and education Develop/formalize pandemic-related policies Develop and implement action plan Stay 3 steps ahead of everyone else in their understanding of the flu

9. Immediate Action Items Centralized command and control is an absolute must for this type of planning The bigger the firm, the more likely the response will spin out of control More people making decisions for individual offices, when this is really a Firm-wide situation and must be handled that way Centralize crisis management/control for the following Education and communication Problem escalation/decision making Analyze impact at the office level and how that may change the firm-wide response Monitoring Firm IT resources along with the Global Team Remote access Laptop pool

10. Immediate Action Items Reality Check Technical Remote Access Capabilities Infrastructure Building servers is not what you want to be doing during any emergency If they are in the budget, procure and deploy them sooner rather than later Bandwidth to handle additional load Average Citrix user consumes 32 – 50kbps Some types of remote access consume even more bandwidth Licenses Adding licenses during a disaster can work as long as the infrastructure can support it Applications Core applications seem obvious, but what about others that support the practice of law or mitigate business risk? Litigation/IP docket Conflicts Practice specific applications

11. Immediate Action Items – Remote Access Capabilities Data Again, understand your capabilities for how people will really work remotely Access to contact information Access to local or server drives for specialized or sensitive data Saved search histories Basics Survey “work from home” capabilities of lawyers/key staff to create baseline Firm-provided laptops (do they take them home every night?) Home PC Scanners Printers High speed

12. Immediate Action Items – Remote Access Capabilities Business Impact Assessment Understand RTO/RPO for critical applications in order to build the proper DR capability Once you understand current capabilities Meet with management to ensure expectations meet the capabilities

13. Immediate Action Items Remote Access Scaling Generally recommend 65% concurrent usage for the largest office or cluster of offices During the avian flu scare, Gartner suggested a 40% concurrent outage of all employees in all offices How do you realistically scale for that? Recommend approximately 35 users/box Citrix Again, don’t forget to address bandwidth

14. Immediate Action Items Define and procure supplies Laptops Security devices Citrix licenses One time/limited usage license for one year for reduced costs SSL VPN licenses Terminal server licenses Repurpose for home use Low end printers Scanners Fax machines Air cards Any device that makes working remotely easier

15. Immediate Action Items Educate Management/Lawyers on Current Remote Access Capabilities Tell them the ways in which applications/data can be accessed remotely Ensure they understand the advantages and disadvantages or limitations for each way Estimated number of concurrent users Point at which there would/may be a reduction in performance Application publication What applications and data are/are not available Don’t embellish current capabilities – this is an opportunity to sell the Firm on expanding current capabilities Work in collaboration with administration to create a “how to work remotely” manual to give lawyers/staff Must be business process focused

16. Immediate Action Items Understand their true “work from home” capacity and/or comfort level Level of training and awareness for all lawyers/staff to work from home HR considerations of non-exempt personnel working this way Level of consideration given to workflow, not just data flow Remember even if lawyers love working from home, during a true disaster it is not business as usual if the office is closed or administrative staff are unavailable Workflow interruptions Communication problems Locating key staff Interruptions and noise

17. Near-term Action Items Talk with your mission critical vendors and suppliers Start developing workflow reallocation plans

18. Near-term Action Items An important note about insurance Business interruption insurance does NOT cover lost billable hours during a pandemic Guess what that means for you? IT’s ability to enable lawyers to work remotely will be the single most important factor in a true response to a pandemic …but no pressure…

19. Near-term Action Items Identify mission critical vendors and suppliers Discuss their pandemic plans with them This is important for business continuity anyway, but even more important now Collocation/hosting solution vendors in particular Current economic times have seriously thinned out staffing levels, making pandemic planning even more problematic Start thinking about workflow re-allocation if key internal staff are unavailable Do this regardless of pandemic planning or not – its just a good business practice

20. Near-term Action Items Address disaster security considerations Purchase additional fobs, tokens, or other licenses etc Develop processes to enable rapid deployment of the access devices Consider changing security measures during the initial stages of any type of emergency situation Talk with HR/management about their plans for allowing staff to work from home

21. Questions? Pam Hill 217.778.6976 phill@placorp.com Lee Hovermale 713.446.8422 lhovermale@placorp.com