Law Firm Management Committee - Covid-19 Guidelines and Information for law firms

Covid-19 guidelines and information

Covid-19: guidelines to get back to work

Most of us around the world are sitting in our home offices continuing to adapt to remote work and the new daily rhythms of confinement and social distancing. We all rapidly shifted from in-person business and traditional social meetings to telephone meetings and extensive use of video-conferencing for everything from client meetings to continuing professional education to family dinners. Lingering resistance to the adoption of new technology tools has largely evaporated.

But how do we get back? And what will we get back to? (Note that I did not say 'back to normal', a concept that will have many shadings and variances.)

The Law Firm Management Committee was quick to provide online resources – written and through webinars – to our global members who were faced with an urgent need to reorganise themselves around remote work. We now need to turn our attention to the challenges of getting back. Richard and Daniel Susskind have identified five phases of the crisis – mobilisation, lock-down, emergence, surge and equilibrium. Our committee has focused on the first two of these phases, but now we need to turn our attention to the third phase – emergence. Perhaps the hardest of all. More complex than the first two. And there will be less adrenaline.

In the coming days and weeks we will be turning our attention to this next phase and creating and sourcing material on the issues we will all be facing in our respective journeys back to the offices we have left behind. In some jurisdictions our members are already far along this path. In others this is still weeks or more away. Our goal as always will be to share our insights.

Some of the things we will all be thinking about:

How will we manage the health risks in our own workplaces?
- Will we require, and will we provide, personal protective equipment?
- Will we require health checks of people who come in?
- Will we require, or pay for, antibody testing?
- How will we deal with the challenges faced by our people as they navigate public transit systems, narrow hallways and elevators as they travel to and from the office?
- Will we allow everyone back at once, or will we use staggered shifts or alternate-day schedules?
- Will we allow clients and other third parties to come in? On what terms?
- How will we support and adapt our arrangements for people who have childcare responsibilities that cannot be met due to school and daycare closures?
- How will we deal with those of our people who are especially at risk due to age or pre-existing conditions, or who live with people with those vulnerabilities?
- When vaccinations become available will we encourage, or require, everyone to be vaccinated?
- How will we deal with shared facilities in the workplace like washrooms, lunchrooms and kitchens? Think about the tea kettle, coffee machine, refrigerator and microwave oven.
- What cleaning and sanitising protocols will we have?
- How will we support those with mental health issues?
- How will our workplace and employee policies change with respect to remote work, in-office activities, extra-office activities, disclosure of health issues and so on?
How will we use our office space going forward and how will our needs evolve?
- Will we need to reconfigure offices to enhance physical distancing?
- Will work-from-home patterns become so well established that we will not need as much space as before?
- Will we be investing in more and better video-enabled communications for internal as well as external communications?
- Will we still need all those conference rooms?
How will we deal with the social issues?
- Is it a problem if everyone can come back but some people choose not to, on the basis that they prefer not to and can do their work from home? Is there a risk of perceived cclass distinctionsc' or favouritism?
- How do we deal with absenteeism that is Covid-19 related?
- When, how and on what terms will we reinstitute dinners, lunches and social events, both internal and with clients?
- How will our travel policies change?
How will we manage the financial consequences of the pandemic?
- Forecasting and managing cash flow
- Managing expenses
- Managing client fee arrangements and payment terms
- Managing workloads and human resources
- Space planning and financial and operational arrangements with landlords
- Compensation issues
How will we find and serve clients going forward?
- Are our new video and tech capabilities here to stay? Assuming they are, will we continue to use them as we have been doing recently? Are we inventing a new normal?
- How will our clients' needs have changed?
- More broadly, will the traditional in-house / external counsel model remain unchanged, and assuming it does, will there be a move among our clients toward more or less reliance on in-house resources?
- Will the surge in technology adoption, and the simultaneous pressure on expense budgets, encourage greater use of commercial knowledge resources and technology tools to replace both in-house and external lawyers?
- In the absence of sporting events, bustling restaurants and so on, how will day-to-day marketing and client relations be managed?

People are fundamentally social creatures. We will return to social interactions similar to the past. However, the way we practise law may be subject to long-term effects in ways we can foresee and in ways we cannot. In any case, the road back may be long, and the beginning of the road is not exactly well-paved or well-mapped. We all need to share the ideas and insights that we all have, so that we can all move forward as successfully and swiftly as possible.

Best wishes and stay safe

Stephen Bowman, Co-Chair of the Law Firm Management Committee

Download Covid-19: immediate action checklist for law firms by Stephen Revell, Secretary-Treasurer of the Law Firm Management Committee, here.

Covid-19 articles from Law Firm Management Committee members

Further information from law firms

The information provided in the above links is provided by the third party firms listed, for educational and informational purposes only. They are not intended as legal advice. The content within does not necessarily represent the views of the International Bar Association.

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Law Firm Management Committee - Covid-19 Guidelines and Information for law firms

Covid-19 guidelines and information

Covid-19 articles from Law Firm Management Committee members

Further information from law firms

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