Storms that raked the Chicago area on Aug. 23 were ill winds for Tinley Park attorney Robert R. Salus.

His office at Cossidente, Salus & Toolis was struck by lightning, and a fire broke out. Despite efforts to extinguish it, the office and contents were destroyed.

Salus had high-hopes that SeniorCam, a home-monitoring system that was featured in the August issue of the ISBA Bar News, would grow into a nice cottage business. He still does, but now he just wants to keep his law practice going.

He was en route to Michigan with his wife for the weekend, when his cell phone rang and he received the unwelcome news. “The Tinley Park Fire Department told me that my offices were on fire and asked if we could return,” Salus said.

“Some girls in the neighboring building heard a big boom and thought their building had been hit, but they didn't find anything. Later, a police cruiser spotted smoke billowing from my roof.

“Out of 4,000 square feet of office space, we saved two desks and two computers. Everything else was pretty much lost,” he said. He and his co-workers will be in temporary quarters at least until December.

“After the initial shock, you worry about your case files because those are precious,” Salus said. “My advice to attorneys is to have off-site storage for your data. Our server crashed, but we were able to salvage the hard drive.

“We're fairly well-organized, so being able to take files and put them back together after they've been saturated with water was very important. And that clean-desk policy has more merit than you would think,” he said.

“If the fire doesn't get the exposed files, the water will. So whatever was in cabinets was basically okay, other than smoke damage.”

But the files left on a lawyer's desk are the ones he or she is constantly working-on, Salus said, and they're usually the most important.

“You want to leave those files out for convenience, but you should put them away at night. I would advise others to put papers away at night, even if they're only in the desk drawer.

“And always make sure that there are copies of original documents, either off-site or with the client.”

Salus strongly recommends having adequate financial reserves. “If we hadn't, we would have lost the firm,” he said. “You'll get money from insurance, but you'll need reserves to get yourself back in order. And don't skimp on contents insurance.”

Salus added that most of his clients have understood, though most had concerns about their files. “Some might question your ability to handle their cases due to your circumstances, but also realize that you may have to turn some clients away as well.”

It's impossible to be 100 percent prepared such a disaster. “You can't lose your offices, find temporary space and put everything back together and be operational in a month,” Salus said. “I use about 50 percent of every day to restore things back to the way they were.”