CHICAGO, Oct. 15, 2012 - The American Bar Association
is the first not-for-profit organization in the country to
be certified for disaster preparedness and response under
the Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Program,
PS-Prep™, approved by the Department of Homeland Security.
The association is only the second U.S. business to achieve
this distinction.
"Our nearly 400,000 members and the public can rest assured
that the ABA can recover from a severe business
interruption and continue to serve their needs," said ABA
President Laurel Bellows. "The organizational resilience
that disaster preparedness provides is critical in an
increasingly unpredictable environment of global terrorism
and frequent natural disasters."
Administered by DHS's Federal Emergency Management Agency,
PS-Prep™ is a voluntary accreditation and certification
program that promotes preparedness standards and best
practices for private-sector recovery from natural
disasters and other business interruptions.
"Private organizations play a critical role in ensuring the
resiliency of our nation," said DHS Secretary Janet
Napolitano. "I applaud the American Bar Association for
achieving PS-Prep™ certification and strongly urge other
private sector partners to work with the PS-Prep™ program
to further enhance the readiness and preparedness of our
country."
In 2010, then-ABA President Stephen Zack and the
ABA Special Committee on Disaster Response and
Preparedness initiated a review of the association's
business interruption and recovery plan, eventually leading
to the development of a new, more robust
business-continuity management system two years later.
Originally focused just on protection of data and
information systems, the new ABA plan is a more
comprehensive, standardized mitigation of risks, broadened
to include operational risk management and multi-year
budgeting, not only for technology systems but also for
people, facilities and third parties for critical
operations.
The ABA business continuity plan conforms to the British
code of practice for business continuity management,
British Standard 25999-2:2007, one of three private-sector
standards selected by DHS.
With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association
is the largest voluntary professional membership
organization in the world. As the national voice of
the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the
administration of justice, promotes programs that assist
lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools,
provides continuing legal education, and works to build
public understanding around the world of the importance of
the rule of law.
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