It’s sobering to wonder how a COVID-19-like pandemic, or a calamity of similar magnitude, might have disrupted the legal business before laptops and the internet – an era within the living memory of some lawyers still practicing, when secretary-typed documents, wall-wired telephones and telexes or faxes were the main alternatives to face-to-face engagement.
Part Three of Three
“It’s difficult to conceive how we might’ve carried on,” said Rob Walters, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher’s Dallas partner-in-charge. “We would’ve installed fax machines in every home. And we would’ve trekked to the FedEx office daily. Hearings and depositions would’ve been impossible. A pandemic would’ve been debilitating to the practice of law.”
Would lawyers have taken foolish risks with their health – just to make a living? Would communications obstacles shut down legal practices and squeeze revenues enough to cause some firms fail?
“It’s difficult to know, but the odds of failure would’ve been higher then than now,” Walters said.
Texas Firm Pandemic Response: Click for Survey Results
In the still-lingering COVID-19 pandemic, of course, law firms had access to computers, software and high-speed internet connections, and modern information technology played a big role in reducing the financial toll on big law firms operating in Texas and elsewher. Most likely, the effectiveness of remote legal services, discovered under duress, has planted the seeds of longer-term changes in the way law firms do business, touching on where lawyers and staff work, what law offices look like and interactions with clients, colleagues and the courts.
“We will embrace the positives of the new environment as we move forward,” said John Martin, Baker Botts’ managing partner.
The importance of IT emerged as an overarching theme in a Texas Lawbook survey of firm finances in the pandemic year of 2020. Among 26 firms specializing in Texas business law, revenues were higher than they were in 2019 at 13 firms, about the same in four others and lower in nine. Twenty-one firms reported that the pandemic’s 2020 revenue impact was less harsh than they’d expected, or feared, as the virus and policies to fight it ravaged the U.S. economy in March and April.
In interviews, several firms cited the seamless transition to the virtual office as the main reason the worst fears didn’t materialize.
“The pandemic has shown that we can be very productive working remotely,” said Andy Calder, a partner Kirkland & Ellis. “It has opened our eyes to the possibilities.”
Andy Calder
Credit: Houston Chronicle
At many firms, investments in information technology made before the pandemic facilitated a seamless transition to remote work. Experiencing the success of remote work, several firms are already saying that post-pandemic they’ll give lawyers more discretion in working from home or conducting meetings online.
“We are much more comfortable with remote work and the tools required to work from anywhere, so we are looking more closely at our flexible work arrangements,” said Thompson & Knight managing partner Mark Sloan.
Zoom and other platforms offer the promise of a time- and money-saving alternative to in-person contact for routine meetings and steps in the legal process – Paul Genender, a partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, pointed to status conferences and nonjury trials as possibilities. But Genender and other lawyers doubted whether depositions, jury trials, business development and mentoring could be done as effectively without face-to-face interactions.
“In the long run, I don’t think fully remote will work,” said Cliff Vrielink, co-managing partner of Sidley Austin’s Houston office. “We’re going to have to be smart about it.”
The shift to remote legal work meant some firms spent less on travel and entertainment in 2020.
“Our expenses were down because we weren’t flying everywhere for meetings and trials and we weren’t taking clients to ballgames,” said Phil Appenzeller, CEO of Munsch Hardt.
Phil Appenzeller
If sustained, slimmed-down travel and entertainment budgets would boost profits and produce savings for clients – both attractive outcomes.
As lawyers become more comfortable on computers, firms will take a fresh look at a major expense – the thousands of square feet of prime downtown office space they’re renting in Dallas, Houston and other cities. “It would be crazy to keep this amount of space,” said Yvette Ostolaza, managing partner of Sidley Austin’s Dallas office.
Vinson & Elkins chair Mark Kelly acknowledged that his firm might reconsider the amount of office space it needs. At other firms, the process was already underway prior to 2020.
“Pre-pandemic, we were in the process of renovating offices in some cities and, as part of that, reevaluating our space needs,” said Michael Newman, Dallas office managing partner at Foley & Lardner. “This has all been brought into sharper focus over the course of the pandemic.”
Even if footprints don’t shrink, firms may use their office space differently. Wally Martinez, managing partner of Hunton Andews Kurth, envisions more breakout rooms and collaborative workspaces. “Everyone is rethinking how we configure and how we use office space,” he said.
Tom Melsheimer, managing partner at Winston & Strawn, said the law office of the future might also incorporate technology-driven changes beyond virtual meetings – the legal secretary job might morph into project coordinator serving groups of lawyers.
“We had been looking at reimagining our legal staff,” he said. “That reimagining was accelerated by the pandemic.”
Lawyers aren’t immune to COVID-19 fatigue, and most of them are eager get back to the office – they miss the collegiality. Once work life returns to some version of normal, the lessons of these past pandemic-scarred months will be processed, subject to such constraints as leases and headcounts.
Any changes will most likely come gradually, but the directions seem clear – more remote work, less travel, smaller or reconfigured offices. These trends were evident before 2020. The pandemic is just hurrying them along.