Every law firm was blindsided by the COVID-19 pandemic. But librarians were faced with two special challenges: assuring that the remote workforce of lawyers had access to standard resources and fielding the tsunami of questions arising from the emergence of “pandemic law and practice.” Lexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg, WoltersKluwer, and Fastcase quickly responded to the crisis with special toolkits and resources in the first weeks primarily focused on laws and policies issued by state and federal legislative bodies. COVID-19 was different — it spawned a whirlwind of local pandemic laws that no one was prepared to track and collect.
Libraries were anything but quiet as COVID-19 emptied law offices across the country. In New York, Patricia Barbone, Director of Library Services at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, noted in an interview that since the firm issued the first work-from-home policy, her staff was “actually working longer days – the commute has all been given back to the firm. We are very dedicated and want to do everything possible to help our lawyers support our clients or help position our firm for potential business in this new pandemic and post-pandemic environment.”
On the West Coast, Cynthia Brown, Director Research Services at Littler, reported that COVID-19 resulted in a dramatic uptick in demands on the research team. “As a Labor and Employment firm, we have been inundated with questions from employers. Every question has been urgent, and most questions required a response from a very recently developed team of subject matter experts (SMEs). The Littler research team was charged with funneling all questions through their tracking system, and getting each question to the correct SME on a newly created COVID task force. The research department also began tracking developments and helping the Knowledge Management team curate content. In less than a week, we created a new repository of firm work product to address the crisis. This repository grows on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis. The researchers also assist with a three daily newsflash’s which provide critical updates.’”
When The Law Is In A Text Message
When California Governor Gavin Newsom issued the nation’s first state stay-at-home order on March 19, 2020, no one was prepared for the relentless cascade of orders, ordinances, and policies issued from every kind of local governmental unit (cities, counties, towns, boroughs, villages) as well as administrative units overseeing issues such as health, transportation, public utilities, fair housing, and so forth. One firm has located over 8,000 local laws and policies related to COVID-19.
Across the United States, law librarians and knowledge managers began developing a skunk-works approach to gathering what was normally viewed as the ephemera of legal documents: governors’ proclamations and agency policy statements. Most states lacked a systematic publication plan, and most failed to publish all the COVID-19 materials on one central website. Sometimes these life-altering statements were issued as tweets, texts, and messages on Facebook or other social media sites. Finding COVID-19 materials was not unlike a scavenger hunt. Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg have all begun to tackle the challenges of local laws, but the legal publishers are focused on the largest cities. Law firms need to advise clients who have facilities in rural areas, and law librarians are filling that vacuum. Law firms themselves have to understand the local policies for their office locations as they develop their reopening plans. COVID-19 litigation for business interruption, labor claims, personal injury, and contract disputes are the bread and butter of litigation departments. Librarians will be critical in identifying the best tracking sources and strategies for alerting lawyers to business development opportunities. According to the Hunton Andrews Kurth COVID-19 Complaint tracker, 2,360 complaints related to COVID-19 have been filed across the United States.
COVID-19: A Boon For Technology Adoption
Barbone reports that many projects have been focused toward business development, and librarians are using their expertise on legislation, industries, and legal practice areas to guide junior lawyers drafting firm advisories and introducing them to existing research products that they previously didn’t use, including ebooks. Technology adoption has been enhanced by the COVID-19 environment. Barbone noted that resources “become relevant only when you have an applicable use case, and we are trying to take advantage of the teachable moments.” While librarians’ core responsibilities are to select, deploy, organize, and train technology-enabled products, the new virtual workplace has provided librarians with the opportunity to expose lawyers to existing products that can help them “draft, analyze, research, produce, etc., legal work product faster, better, and cheaper.”
Opportunities for the future
Littler’s Brown sees ongoing opportunity for the research department to shine. “We are looking at ‘the future’ trying to determine what that might look like. The research department has been asked to assist a firm committee that is drawing up plans on how the firm will respond to whatever that future is. We are taking the work we have done so far and finding ways to apply our new processes to the anticipated demand. For example, we have created a new way to track in Service Now packages that our Task Force created for clients. This allows us to track our work, but also to run a report to alert requesting attorneys when the package has been updated and they need to advise their clients of new changes to the law/issues. This process is also allowing us to assist with proper billing for work product. We plan for the firm to create more of this specialized work product in the future, and the research department will be vital in keeping that organized and properly commoditized.”
The pandemic will recede, but the impact on the country and the legal profession will linger. One thing is certain — law firms have met the virtual workplace and that impact will endure. Barbone observed that one positive development has been the opportunity “to work in groups that include all levels of staff and attorneys to make better decisions about how the firm will operate in the future.” Law librarians and knowledge managers will play an important role in helping law firms identify the external resources and develop internal resources necessary for practice in the post-COVID-19 legal market.
Jean O’Grady is a knowledge strategist/librarian/lawyer with over 30 years’ experience leading the transformation of research and knowledge services in Am Law 100 law firms. She is the author of the Dewey B Strategic blog, which monitors the evolving landscape of technologies and companies that are transforming the business and practice of law.
