In a recent webinar hosted by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the Asian American Bar Association of New York, a group of Fortune 500 in-house legal leaders said their departments are at the center of the crisis response and they are focusing on how to bring employees back to work.

"We're operating in a time of government-issued orders and lots of ambiguity with respect to those orders. How do you deal with employee issues and how do you deal with privacy issues?" David Hyman, general counsel of Netflix Inc. in San Francisco, said. "For better or for worse, the first place the operational folks seem to be looking is to the legal team."

Elisa Garcia, chief legal officer at Macy's Inc. in New York, said the pandemic has been a whirlwind for her legal team. In March, the company shut down all of its stores, furloughed approximately 80% of its workforce, and stopped paying its landlords and vendors.

"Our online business has done really well, but we are not a machine designed to have all of our stores closed," Garcia said. "The immediate job has to be how you stop the cash burn."

She explained that her team has spent a lot of time on all of the executive orders by state and municipal governments on when to close. Now that stores are opening back up, Macy's legal team is working to make sure they're in compliance with the new standards.

"The focus of the crisis has been all around the stores," Garcia said.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Hyman said that while things are going well at Netflix, his concerns are over his legal team and how they are working while alone.

"The big issue has been people being isolated on their own. We're trying to maintain some sense of community in the team," Hyman said.

However, as companies open back up, it is unlikely that there will be a rush to corporate offices to build a sense of community among the workforce. Alan Tse, the global chief legal officer of Jones Lang LaSalle in Chicago, said his company has 95,000 employees worldwide. In areas that have begun opening up, he said it is impossible to practice social distancing and to have everyone come back at the same time.

"Companies will adopt a phased and flexible approach as we transition back to the office with the expiration of stay at home orders," Michael Wu, the chief legal officer of Madewell in New York, said.

The in-house panelists said companies should keep in mind the lessons to be learned about working from home during the pandemic.

"You want to hold on to the aspects of the past several months and figure out how to preserve that and be open to a percentage of our employees working from home for a portion of time," Peter Beshar, general counsel of Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. in New York, said.