Small Law Firms

COVID-19 Can Cause Lasting Damage To The Legal Profession If We're Not Careful

Managers need to be vigilant to make sure that they learn lessons from the pandemic and only incorporate positive reforms learned from the last year or so when normal operations resume.

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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused a seismic shift in the legal profession and has changed the way many law firms and other legal organizations operate. Indeed, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of remote work, cloud applications, and other advances in the legal arena. This column has previously discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic can advance lasting positive change in the legal arena, and other outlets have published similar pieces. Nevertheless, if we are not careful, the COVID-19 pandemic can cause lasting damage to the way that law firms and legal organizations operate.

One negative change that might impact the legal profession in the long term as a result of the pandemic is a further disintegration of the work-life balance. As many veteran legal professionals can recount from firsthand experience, the work-life balance has been under assault in the legal profession for the past few decades. Many old timers point to the widespread adoption of BlackBerries and other smartphones as the start of the move away from a work-life balance because such devices allowed people to be on the grid and accessible around the clock. In the past decade or so, with the expansion of remote-work technology, some firms have even expected employees to log onto work and be reachable at all times of the day and during holidays and other times off.

The work-life balance has been virtually destroyed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since most lawyers are working from home, and need to juggle personal tasks and work tasks throughout their days, there is little distinction between work time and personal time right now. Many lawyers might accept this as an appropriate tradeoff for the convenience of being able to work from home and being flexible in how they manage their personal time.

Nevertheless, as law firms return to the office, it is possible that some shops will not return to a semblance of a work-life balance. It is possible that law firms will continue to expect associates to be available to return emails and do work during all times of the day or night. If law firms eventually return to the ordinary pace of office life, it is hoped that they will respect pre-pandemic expectations of work-life balance, and legal professionals need to be vigilant about this to minimize a further degradation of the work-life balance.

Another way that COVID-19 can have lasting negative impacts on legal professionals is through the spending habits of many law firms. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many law firms spent less on entertainment expenses, networking events, travel fees, and other costs. Of course, since most people had to be socially distant, it rarely made sense to bring people together to network, socialize, or learn new skills. In addition, many of the networking and educational functions that firms usually attend were held virtually at a fraction of the cost during the pandemic. In any event, one of the reasons why so many firms did relatively well last year financially is since they had less expenses from these cost cuts, and the demand for legal services remained somewhat stable.

It would be a shame if law firms decided once things start to return to normal that they would rather save costs on travel, networking events, and the like in order to improve their bottom line. Such events are a great way to meet different legal professionals and others within an industry and can be a solid source of referrals for people who are just starting to develop business. Moreover, training institutes, conferences, and other similar functions can be a great way to pick up new skills, and attending such events virtually is not as effective as attending such functions in person.

In order to avoid lasting damage to the legal profession, law firms should also change their position with respect to administrative staff once things normalize and people return to offices. Support staff have borne the brunt of the pain among legal professionals as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. With everyone working from home, it was difficult for support staff to do the printing, mailing, copying, and other administrative tasks that are important to the operation of many law firms. Moreover, since people have worked remotely throughout the pandemic, it has made more sense for attorneys to complete tasks themselves that were usually completed by administrative professionals.

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As previously discussed in this column, support professionals are extremely important to attorneys since they help make lawyers more efficient and productive, which can positively impact a firm’s bottom line. Some law firms may wish to keep a lower number of support professionals after the pandemic because of the cost savings of a lower headcount. However, this approach can be harmful in the long run, and hopefully firms will hire the appropriate number of administrative staff once they return to normal operations.

In the end, the COVID-19 pandemic can have a lasting positive impact on the legal profession or it can hurt the legal arena in a number of ways. Managers need to be vigilant to make sure that they learn lessons from the pandemic and only incorporate positive reforms learned from the last year or so when normal operations resume.

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

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