At the start of 2020, before any Americans had heard of the COVID-19 virus, the United States was home to a half-million homeless people, over 2 million in prisons, 27 million without health insurance, 37 million struggling with hunger and tens of millions with untreated addiction or mental health problems. Beyond these sobering figures, 40% of our adult population lacked cash to cover emergency expenses.

The numbers are all critical in understanding the roots of the "access to justice" crisis that has been receiving increasing attention in this publication and elsewhere, particularly as influential voices across the legal profession have called for radical changes to how legal services in the United States are regulated and provided. That has included, most controversially, opening the doors to certain forms of nonlawyer representation and ownership.

But before our attention became sidetracked by the ongoing public health emergency and its increasingly dire economic consequences, proponents of reform encountered a few bumps in the road. The first few months of this year did see the Washington, D.C., bar association joining groups in other states exploring new models of providing legal services, as well as an endorsement of regulatory change from the Conference of Chief Justices. But efforts in California—arguably the most important jurisdiction in the country—sputtered out amid political headwinds, while sponsors of an American Bar Association resolution pushing for exploration of new regulatory possibilities had to dilute its language to secure passage from the organization's House of Delegates.

Now that the coronavirus crisis has significantly deepened the level of privation across the country, proponents of reform say the issue is more acute than ever.

"I'm reading every day about an increase in people trying to get wills done, small businesses dealing with their insurers, what's going on in the landlord-tenant market," says Utah Supreme Court Justice Deno Himonas, who co-chairs the Utah task force that is working to get a regulatory sandbox for new types of legal businesses up and running by the start of July.

"There are enormous legal needs that everybody needs to confront now. That highlights why we need some way of delivering a quality product at an affordable rate," Himonas continues.

Broadening opportunities for nonlawyers to build and invest in new ways to serve the public, often via the use of technology, is just one area of discussion for reforming the way the profession is regulated. Another potential response to the current period of upheaval is loosening some of the regulatory barriers between different states. An analog is the ABA's so-called Katrina rule allowing temporary practice by out-of-state lawyers following a natural disaster.

"It's not rocket science to figure out that there's going to be a maldistribution of legal services, just like there's a maldistribution of medical services," says Daniel Rodriguez, the Harold Washington professor at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law.

Rodriguez suspects regulators in some states might elect to slacken their hold on who can serve the poor and middle class in areas of immediate critical need, including bankruptcy. Utah, which is already ahead of the curve, officially opened the public comment period for its reform proposal—with the regulatory sandbox as a centerpiece—last week,. The Utah Supreme Court is offering expedited review for proposals aimed at offering low-cost or no-cost legal advice for small businesses, people with unemployment issues, and others. Similarly proactive steps in other states could have lasting consequences.

"If there's a weakening, then I believe the powers that be will see that the skies have not fallen, that these measures will alleviate the most immediate access-to-justice burdens and these efforts will not imperil the well-being of practicing lawyers," Rodriguez says. "The only way to dampen that fear is with facts on the ground, not just pontificating about the case for reform."

When it comes to regulatory loosening, the timeframe will be measured in weeks, or more likely months. Big Law, on the other hand, has proved to be far more nimble with its own pro bono exertions. Within days of the country entering into shutdown mode in the middle of March, firms like Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Kirkland & Ellis were launching programs to guide individuals and small businesses facing financial calamity toward relief options.

Other firms have been working with community partners to figure out how to serve existing clients to sustain existing initiatives in a climate of social distancing, while working with community partners to identify areas of new need. According to Suzanne Turner, the chair of Dechert's pro bono practice, one example is building a hotline to aid computerless individuals with online unemployment applications. (This is also a helpful reminder that technology alone won't solve all access-to-justice issues.)

At the same time, Big Law can only do so much.

"I have tried to be really clear that lawyers have been extraordinarily generous. But not now, not before, not ever were we going to be able to volunteer ourselves across the gap," Himonas says. Research from University of Toronto law professor Gillian Hadfield estimates that each American lawyer would need to provide 900 hours of pro bono work annually to aid all households with legal needs.

Still, some help is better than none. And the quick ramp-up is heartening, especially because it's happening despite a massive disruption in how lawyers operate.

"We didn't have to deal with remote work in 2008. Everyone was experiencing the disaster right next to each other," Turner says. "Firms are trying to ensure that we as a community are working together to not be duplicative and create programs and services in a systematic and efficient way."

Can this all hold up as long as necessary in a period of financial stress for law firms themselves? The Great Recession that started in 2008 offers a useful comparison. As so many lawyers now in their mid-30s and older remember far too well, dozens of firms took drastic measures, including layoffs and halts on associate hiring. On the surface, some of these cuts aided nonprofit legal services organizations, with a number of large law firms paying their associates to spend a year working for their partners in that sphere. And attorneys who did get to stick around were encouraged to look for pro bono opportunities to stay busy.

"It's a priority. We make sure we have time to focus on it when times are bad," says Kirkland & Ellis corporate partner Chris Torrente. He adds that his firm is better equipped to do pro bono work now than it was a decade ago because the firm's more general tilt from litigation work to transactional work has been accompanied by the development of infrastructure that makes it easier for deal-makers to lend their time, too.

"What the pandemic has done has made everyone aware of what it is to be vulnerable," adds Susan Davies, a partner on Kirkland's litigation side. "It's sharpened our focus on how important the work that we do in this space is."

The hope is that this commitment doesn't fade, both at the world's top-grossing law firm and at the many others that might not have quite the same level of padding to insulate themselves from the likely jolts and jerks that lie ahead.

"These legal issues will continue for days, for months and years into the future, when the worst of the public health crisis is behind us," Rodriguez says. "That will tell the tale of the capacity and the commitment of lawyers in law firms to provide meaningful assistance through pro bono efforts in response to the crisis."

Once the pandemic is firmly in our rearview mirror, we can also expect the debate about regulatory reform and access to justice to take on dramatically different contours. As Himonas says, "This will light a fire under these types of efforts to innovate inside the court system and outside of it."

We won't have to rely on reading the ashes to tell the future. The evidence should be much more obvious.

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