"Social distancing" has arrived, and the legal industry is no exception. Thanks to the spread of the coronavirus across the U.S., a shift to remote work in the coming days is inevitable. Will this be a dress rehearsal for the future of law firms? Want to weigh in? Email me here. Want this dispatch in your inbox every Thursday? Sign up here.

Social Distancing

I'm sitting in the office today. But I can't say I'm going to be here next week. And I imagine that many of you are in the same boat.

Thousands of lawyers, administrators, professional staff, paralegals are bound to find themselves working from home in the coming weeks, as firms implement "social distancing" policies to combat the aggressive spread of COVID-19.

What's this crash course in remote working going to mean for law firms, who have long placed a premium on face-to-face contact, both with clients and between senior lawyers and young associates?

The technology is there, for sure. Pretty much everyone has a firm-issued laptop and can access critical resources via a virtual private network. And even before firms shutter offices and mandate remote work, many firms are evaluating their capabilities.

Hogan Lovells asked half of U.S. employees who can work from home to do so earlier today, and it will do the same with the other half tomorrow. It intends to do the same with its U.K employees next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Similarly, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner has implemented rotations to thin out the density of some of its most densely occupied offices as it tests its own infrastructure for remote work.

It's one thing to pack your laptop in your bag, as you likely do most evenings, and log-in the next day in your home office or at your dining room table.

But as Caplin & Drysdale firm administrator John Riggleman told me yesterday, there are practical considerations for being out for more than a couple days. You may not need to print out documents on a daily basis, but what if you need a printer once in a two-week span?

Or senior partners who might not be used to entering in their own time, instead turning to legal secretaries just down the hall. That will have to change.

Redundancies are key, Riggleman added. If the VPN doesn't work, is there another way to access shared resources? There had better be.

With tremendous uncertainty surrounding the ultimate severity of the pandemic, I'm cautious about grasping for silver linings. And yet, it seems fair to view this exogenous shock as a dress rehearsal for the future. Not necessarily that we should expect more destabilizing events, although with the growing consensus about the consequences of climate change, we can't rule them out.

But with the generational transformation within law firms, it's clear that young attorneys demand more flexibility in how they build their careers. Part of this is where and how they get their work done.

Firms that have already recognized this likely have a head start on managing the coming weeks, or months if we're unlucky. Those that haven't are going to have a crash course in accommodating the needs of a mobile workforce. Let's hope it's shorter than a full semester. Let's also hope they learn from it.

In the News

➤➤My colleagues have been hard at work staying on top of the swiftly changing terrain with regard to COVID-19. Law schools are moving online, closely watched trials are being delayed, and, as I reported yesterday, hiring is in flux. Just today, Dylan Jackson looked at what lessons "virtual" firms can offer. ➤➤Meanwhile, the American Bar Association has also been shutting down events, while the organization has been scheduling a slate of webinars about how to respond to the crisis, per the ABA Journal.

➤➤We do have reporters continuing to focus on evergreen topics. Like Frank Ready, who—in the wake of the failure of tech startup Atrium—looked at why technology has thus far failed to kill the billable hour. He found the answer was simple: "Attorneys—and even some clients—don't want it to happen.

Even if I'm writing from home, you'll hear from me again next Thursday! Thanks again for reading, and please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. Sign up here to receive The Law Firm Disrupted as a weekly email.