A trio of in-house lawyers at Silicon Valley technology companies encouraged law firms to keep up their efforts on diversity and inclusion, consider sending their associates to work in-house on secondment, and to focus on personal relationships with clients in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tammy Albarrán, deputy general counsel of Uber Technologies Inc., Harvey Anderson, general counsel of HP Inc., and William Mosley, counsel, global litigation and investigations at Applied Materials, all spoke as part of a Zoom videoconference panel sponsored by the Northern California chapter of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers moderated by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila of the Northern District of California Wednesday night.

The speakers were unified from the start of the panel, titled "In-House, Sheltering From The Storm," that lawyers should not expect things to return to the "normal" they were accustomed to before the global pandemic. They also said that smart lawyers and law firms will find opportunity in the changes to come.

"It's a case of first impression for everyone," said Davila, before asking each of the in-house lawyers to describe what the recent transition has been like for them.

Albarrán said that her team's move to working remotely was "in and of itself not that difficult," since much of the team's interactions with outside counsel were previously handled via videoconference. But the business itself has faced significant challenges since its services have been deemed essential in some jurisdictions but not in others, and its traditional ride-hailing service has fallen off while its delivery arm Uber Eats has grown. Speaking of the company's recent round of layoffs, Albarrán said that it was meaningful to her that outside counsel checked in with her after hearing the news.

"They reached out to say 'Hey, I'm thinking about you. How are you?'" she said. "It was more just a reminder these are my trusted advisers who don't just care about me as a client who can engage them, but they also care about me as an individual."

Albarrán encouraged those watching online to take the time to build personal relationships with their clients.

HP's Anderson said that as he and his team began working from home, they were running as fast as they could to keep up with the new legal challenges coming at the company. He said it took a while to realize "we're not working from home—we're working remotely in a pandemic." 

"That's the context of what's actually happening," Anderson said. 

He said that on the other side of the pandemic he expects there to be a "hybrid model," blending working from home and in-office work, as it's determined to be safe. He said there are manufacturing and research and development functions that are impossible for HP to do remotely, but that "knowledge workers" don't necessarily have to be on-site.

Mosley at Applied Materials echoed that sentiment, saying security and other maintenance workers have continued to go into the semiconductor engineering company's facilities in recent months since it produces essential infrastructure. "From the legal department perspective, we have been very effective at working remotely. But that doesn't carry over to every single team," he said.

Changing Dynamic with Outside Counsel

Davila prodded the in-house lawyers to both tell how working relationships have changed with the outside firms that they use, and to provide some "no-nos" for the 103 lawyers tuning in online. 

"My sense is that you're not going to the million-dollar conference room in towers in Oakland and San Francisco for meetings anymore," Davila said.    

Albarrán said that given the urgency of the questions that Uber has faced during the pandemic, she has leaned on lawyers who are responsive.

"Nobody is traveling," she said. "I do expect a quick response."

She added the firms who are at this moment prioritizing short-term profits over long-term relationships are being "shortsighted." 

HP's Anderson said that his outside counsel have to recognize that his company's business model has changed. 

"We weren't making face masks nine weeks ago. We weren't making nasal swabs," he said. "Unless you're Zoom or Netflix, you've probably had a significant change in the market around you, and you are under significant cost pressure," he added.

All three in-house lawyers agreed that it's a good time to consider offering to send associates on secondment to clients to learn the business and observe the changes from inside their companies.

Mosley suggested that if you see a client repeatedly reaching out to the same associate, it wouldn't hurt to ask about sending the associate in-house for a period.

"You might be surprised that the client was thinking of the same thing and didn't raise it," he said.

HP's Anderson also encouraged junior lawyers that there might be more opportunities for them than there might appear on the face of things, given the economic climate. He said that the changes underway now remind him of the time around the dawn of the internet. He said that what lawyers who have been practicing for 25 years know might not be as valuable as the things young lawyers are learning right now. In the early days of the internet, he said, "people weren't looking at the old books to figure out what to do." 

"It was the Wild West and there might be an element of that now," he added.

Anderson, in comments that were echoed by the other in-house lawyers, also urged firms to keep up their efforts on diversity and inclusion. (Anderson appeared in the videoconference with an image of an "I Can't Breathe" from a protest appearing in the backdrop and Albarrán had the phrase "I Stand With Black At Uber" in hers during the presentation.) Anderson noted that in the recession of 2008, diverse lawyers were disproportionately affected by layoffs at large law firms. 

"Those communities were hurt more," he said. "We have to keep that on the forefront."

Added Mosley: "I make decisions in terms of outside counsel based on the diversity of the teams and the diversity of the firms and the fairness of the firms." 

"We are watching that, and we are paying attention," he said.