SJS Legal are firmly committed to delivering our services to the highest possible standard, without putting the health and wellbeing of our colleagues, clients or external suppliers at risk. At a time when uncertainty is growing over the epidemic of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), we understand the importance of engaging with our clients to create assurance that the right procedures are in place to ensure the safe continuation of the business.

We have a business continuity framework in place which plans for a variety of potential business continuity incidents, including the impact of pandemic illness. The framework is being regularly reviewed to ensure it is fully up to date. Although there are a relatively small number of cases of Coronavirus confirmed in the UK, there is no current impact to our employees or the services that we provide. We are, however, carefully monitoring developments should we need to activate our Business Continuity Plan.

The Actions we are currently taking include:

• Under the oversight of our Managing Directors we are undertaking daily monitoring of the advice and guidance issued by the Department of Health and Social Care, Public Health England and the World Health Organisation;
• We are monitoring reported cases and infection rates daily;
• We are reducing any non-essential travel between our office location and external suppliers and clients;
• We are undertaking internal monitoring of absence levels in line with typical measures at this time of year;
• We are sending regular internal communications to provide updates to our colleagues.
• We are sending external communications to all our clients and external suppliers;
• We have adapted our appointment correspondence to clients to advise them to avoid attending our offices if they have been advised to self-isolate.

In addition to the above, we are ready to put in place appropriate and precautionary measures should it be necessary.

These include:

• Activation of part or all of our Business Continuity plan for a particular department or whole work force, which could include requesting employees work from home to in an attempt to continue our commitment to service levels for our clients;
• Activation of our IT Disaster Recovery Plan;
• Engagement with external suppliers over their readiness for dealing with a Coronavirus pandemic.

We will of course continue to watch carefully for new developments as the situation unfolds and adapt our policies accordingly. However, if you have any immediate questions or require any further information; please direct these requests to your File Handler in the first instance who will aim to respond to you within a 48 hour period.