Womble Bond Dickinson has devised a way for the firm's busy parents to take a little break from juggling caregiving and kids' schoolwork while working from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

About 30 of the trans-Atlantic firm's lawyers and staff have recorded themselves reading a favorite children's book, which the firm collected in an internal library, called WBD Reads. Womble parents can play the videos for their kids.

"Parents need resources for things to do with their kids in the middle of a workday," said WBD Reads' organizer, chief talent officer Cindy Pruitt, adding that the videos can give them the 15 minutes they need to send out an email.

Right now, there are 30 videos in the Vimeo library of volunteers reading everything from short picture books like "Goodnight Moon" (in Spanish, no less) to chapters of longer works like "The Secret Garden" in clips of five to 15 minutes. Pruitt expects to have 50 videos by the end of the week.

Atlanta associate Emily Whittaker recorded herself reading "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" while holding her 8-month-old son, Winn, who follows along while playing with a stuffed rabbit. By the end of the five-minute clip, he's stretched across his mom's lap, looking ready for a nap.

Even though Winn is still a baby, he enjoys the videos, Whittaker said, adding that she played him one of Charlotte associate Kevin Trempe reading "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein with his own 3-week-old son in his lap.

"He's fascinated with watching other people, so it engages him and calms him down," she said. "It's really helpful. It gives me a break from watching him so much."

Older readers can follow along with lawyers D. Scott Anderson in Charleston, South Carolina, Elizabeth O'Neill in Charlotte and Bill Koch in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as they tag-team reading the first nine chapters of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

Pruitt and her team put WBD Reads together on a suggestion from Baltimore lawyers David Hamilton and Sarah Meyer. When she floated the idea by Womble's lawyers and staff, Pruitt said, "We didn't know if we'd get a lot of response—or if it was one more thing for people to do right now."

The response was enthusiastic, she said, both from parents and volunteer readers.

How It Works

The planning team, which includes several moms with young children, crowdsourced a list of books they knew kids would like for volunteer readers to choose from, Pruitt said. They also supplied basic instructions on using a cellphone to make the video.

Many of the books, like "The Secret Garden," are in the public domain. HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster granted permission to use other works under their copyrights, which they've also done with educators and librarians during the pandemic.

Some of the readers, like Whittaker and Trempe, are parents of young children, but plenty of other volunteers are not. Kevin Long, an engineer at Womble's Winston-Salem, North Carolina, headquarters, read the Syd Hoff classic "Danny and the Dinosaur" with his teddy bear Pookie.

Washington, D.C., partner Marty Stern read "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" from his son's childhood bedroom, which Stern has been using as a home office. In the video, Stern gestures toward the bed with University of North Carolina Tarheels pennants festooned above it and tells viewers it's where he read the Judith Viorst classic to his son many years ago.

Stern periodically interrupts his reading to give some extra commentary on the pictures (by illustrator Ray Cruz). "Have you had days like that?" he asks viewers as he holds up a picture of Alexander looking quite grumpy. "I know I have. Probably in the last two months we've had a few days like that, right?"