Attainium’s Conduct It Yourself Tabletop Exercise Provides The Framework
With 19 offices around the globe, Hunton & Williams LLP faces considerable challenges to ensuring the safety of more than 2,000 employees. Among the world’s 40 largest law firms, Hunton & Williams views business continuity and emergency preparedness as top priorities, and has dedicated a seasoned firm manager, Kathy Scourby, to the task full-time. As firmwide business continuity manager, Scourby is charged with maintaining the organization’s business continuity plans and providing comprehensive training for local crisis management teams.
A member of the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA), Scourby first learned about Attainium training exercises in Seattle, while attending the group’s annual meeting. After researching the exercises on Attainium’s website, Scourby purchased the workplace violence series as a starting point for her worldwide training initiative. To date, she has used the Conduct-it-Yourself Tabletop Exercises to train teams in 15 of the firm’s 19 offices.
"Attainium’s tabletop exercises were a good fit for an organization of our size and complexity." Scourby said. "Purchasing a single exercise, I was able to tailor individual programs for each office location. Without the framework provided by these exercises, it would have taken significantly longer to roll out our training program."
Scourby reports that feedback from the firm’s leadership and crisis teams has been overwhelmingly positive. After training the first 30 administrators, it became clear that the exercises would enable Hunton & Williams to adjust their local disaster recovery plans to more adequately address real-life scenarios. Because Attainium’s programs are flexible, Scourby could adapt the exercises to make them relevant for each office location.
"Customization of the training exercises was essential. Responding to a potential threat in New York’s Grand Central Station may require resources and planning not necessitated in other offices. Flexible programming has allowed us to design plans that maximize the effectiveness of our local response."
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