Law firms and Chambers based in central London, using Advanced Legal’s (Advanced) hosted platform were able to continue working despite the disruption caused by an underground fire, which broke out in the Holborn area last week. The fire saw more than 5,000 people evacuated from the area and the cost of disruption to businesses is predicted to exceed £40 million*.
Whilst many firms had to close due to the emergency, Advanced Legal’s customers, which had organised for their IT infrastructure to be hosted in the cloud, were able to remain operational. Customers have fed back that they were able to continue with daily activities thanks to hosting their applications in the cloud with Advanced.
Chambers, 4 Stone Buildings was directly affected by the fire, which cut off power and communications to their offices.
Chris O’Brien, 4 Stone Buildings, says, “Incidents like this will always be unexpected but you can be prepared for them. Having our chambers management software solution MLC hosted in the cloud by Advanced Legal meant the impact of the outage was minimal. Our barristers were able to quickly relocate and continue their work without any issues.”
Martin Parker, senior clerk at Mansfield Chambers, also comments, “Obviously the incident caused massive disruption for many. Thanks to Advanced’s hosted solution we were able to minimise its impact. We experienced a small amount of downtime whilst we moved operations and then we were able to resume work as if nothing had happened.”
Doug Hargrove, managing director, Advanced Legal, says, “It often isn’t until a major incident occurs that we are reminded just how important business continuity is. Whether it’s a full hosted solution or a disaster recovery back-up plan, it’s key to ensure you can continue to service and support your clients in the wake of a major incident.
“I’m pleased that many of our clients in the area have fed back that they were able to continue working uninterrupted, unlike many firms which weren’t prepared, saving valuable time and costs.”
The fire, which broke out on 1 April was put out by London Fire Brigade on Good Friday after burning for 36 hours. During the loss of power 3,000 properties were affected and eight theatres were forced to cancel performances**.
Advanced Legal offers a range of technology solutions for the legal industry including a full cloud platform as well as disaster recovery. Disaster recovery technology is becoming increasingly essential for businesses, due to flood, fire and terrorism risks, with downtime costing UK businesses £2 billion each year.
