Eric L. Lewis senior partner with Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss.

When I became a litigator 35 years ago, I drafted on yellow pads that were sent off to "word processing," court filings were made on a sprint at 11:58 p.m. to the guard at the courthouse, and senior partners sat in paneled offices, often smoking cigars at their desks after martini-filled lunches. Offices were packed on the weekend, as there was no way to log in from home; there were no cellphones, or laptops, or e-mail.

Things have changed quite a bit, but looking forward from this improbable ninth week of shutdown, I believe that litigation is about to enter another sea change. Some of these changes may be temporary, but others are likely to be long-lasting and have ripple effects throughout the profession and the economy.

For example, remote working is here to stay. I was always the Luddite who believed that litigation fundamentally required sitting around a conference table to get to the right answers and to teach young people how it is done. When people had to phone in, I often felt that they were only half paying attention and tended to go silent after the first few minutes. Now I am a lot less sure.

When I am writing or preparing, I am able to work from home with fewer distractions and more continuous focus.  Zoom and Skype allow virtual meetings to stay in touch with colleagues and clients and the technology is likely to improve. It may not be the same as being there, but people generally stay focused–and stolen glances downward at smart phones can be seen in virtual as well as actual reality. And while it is sometimes harder to read the rhythms of strategic discussions when you can't sense when the last person is finished or who else is about to speak, by and large we are able to have focused strategy discussions with fewer distractions than when held in a bustling office.

Some people will want to come into the office when the shelter-in-place restrictions are lifted. They may not be able to work at home because of logistics or they may need to take turns with their partners to supervise kids (who are not going back to school anytime soon) or aged relatives. They may prefer having private space that may not be available at home or they may prefer convenient access to easy copying and printing and supplies. With apologies to the environment, I still prefer to work with binders of hard copy documents rather than toggle back and forth on the laptop.

Many people, however, will prefer to spend a significant portion of their time working from home. It will ease social distancing (which, let's face it, will be with us for a long, long time) for those who do come to the office. It will eliminate the wasted commute time. It will reduce the risk of contagion, especially for those who take public transportation. It will help the environment.

The Adam Smith Institute, a conservative think tank, is recommending that employees be divided into groups, each of which work four days straight and then take ten days off, to promote social distancing and to improve the chances that if someone is infected, their initial symptoms will manifest at home and they can remain there. The coronavirus pandemic has made our litigation teams more inclusive as we routinely zoom the entire team rather than sometimes gather all hands on deck and forget the person not in the office that day.

Many will come to the office for client meetings or periodic work group meetings, but many of those meetings may remain virtual as well, especially as law firms rethink space for the coronavirus age.  Clients who used to enjoy getting on an airplane to come to New York or D.C, or invite you to their headquarters, may much prefer Zooming.

We will have to figure out virtual depositions. Virtual preparation is certainly feasible, especially as remote applications improve in allowing documents to be shared.  Although I have taken and defended depositions where the witness is in another country and most of the lawyers are in their offices, I would not want to defend a client if I were not in the room with her. The psychology of examinations is important and witnesses want to feel that they are not on their own.

Similarly, establishing rapport and cadence with a witness is important on cross-examination, and it is much more difficult to do that with the blips and micro-delay of remote depositions. Certainly, in large, multi-party cases, the long queue of associates objecting to form seriatim do not need to travel to distant locales to make their record.

Of course, judicial and arbitral proceedings have always taken place in high-ceilinged courtrooms and conference centers. But that too may change. The Supreme Court, always behind the times technologically, is hearing oral arguments over the phone. Courts of appeal have allowed judges who sit away from the seat to appear by video for some time. And let's face it: most judges don't consider the oral argument all that important; the vast majority of appeals are decided on the briefs.

At the other end of the spectrum from federal appeals are state court proceedings, often regarding discovery disputes or other mundane disputes. With sufficient technology, state judges would presumably be relieved to have those arguments at virtual distance than hear squabbles within aerosol droplet distance. Lawyers would be more effective without all the dead time of getting to courthouses, getting through security and then, frequently, waiting for the judge to take the bench, or for your matter to be called.

Litigators have always wanted space, for conferences, war rooms to prepare for trial, libraries for research.  But space is expensive; libraries are now online and war rooms are now filled with document readers rather than piles of boxes.  We will need conference space for depositions or arbitrations and mediations, but the days of litigators holding court in plush spacious offices are over.  My office has a desk, two visitor chairs, a full-size couch, and a round stand-up table.  Will I finish my career hot desking?  Probably not, but I expect that our next move will be to a place with much more open plan and I will occupy a glass cubicle rather than a traditional senior partner office.

Overall, I think we will be in close touch and more efficient post-COVID 19. Before the shutdown, we always talked about having more regular practice group meetings and business development meetings, but they were often cancelled if a few senior people were away or busy.  Now they go forward and we see the value of talking through what is happening in cases, in knowing who is busy and who needs work, and in seeing opportunities for new business development, in giving assignments and deadlines in real time, and in paying attention to problems in real time before they spiral.

In international disputes boutiques, we like to think ourselves as working litigators, which usually results, at best, in management on the fly. No doubt we should have been managing better all along, but we all give ourselves dispensation from these necessary tasks when we are busy and running around.  We have learned it is important to take a moment and smell the receivables.

Perhaps it may be too early to declare that everything is different. Perhaps on the glorious day when everyone can get an effective vaccine, everything will go back to as it was before.  Not the yellow pad era, but maybe 2019, plus lots of Purell. But we have learned a lot over the last nine weeks about working efficiently and safely in new times.

Eric Lewis is a senior partner at Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss in Washington D.C. and New York, practicing in the areas of international litigation and arbitration, serious fraud, banking, international insolvency and complex securities litigation.