New Florida legal procedures put in place during the coronavirus pandemic, such as a greater reliance on remote workforces and attending hearings using video-conferencing technology, will likely remain even after the crisis subsides.
That’s the assessment of many attorneys who have found they can be even more productive working from home instead of the office. Law.com recently reported that law firms in the state appear to be in no hurry to reopen their primary offices since lawyers working remotely on their laptops are keeping the businesses humming, making austerity measures unnecessary.
“This is going to change the practice of law forever,” Brian Tannebaum, general counsel for Bast Amron LLP in Miami, told the Florida Record. “Smart law firms are looking at this and saying, ‘Do we need what we had?’”
Attorney Brian Tannebaum
Attorneys are already reducing their travel times and stress by no longer having to drive in heavy traffic to get to a five-minute hearing at a central courthouse, Tannebaum said. Instead, they’re doing this in a matter of minutes by getting a Zoom link from a judge and attending the session remotely from home.
“My stress level has completely plummeted,” he said, noting that he has not been back to his office since March 13 and hasn’t found a need to return since he can continue to do his work from home with a computer, phone, text messaging, and access to his files and Zoom hearings.
It’s likely that law firms will be reassessing how much office space their employees really need, with reduced overhead likely as attorneys use home offices more and return to downtown offices only when needed or when it’s convenient for a client, according to Tannebaum.
“I would not like to be a commercial real estate firm right now,” he said.
Though attorneys with young children or who lack a designated room for a home office might find working from home a challenge, others may find it preferable to the typical distractions of an office environment, where employees shoot the breeze around the water cooler or have to take time out to focus on visitors, according to Tannebaum.
“Time savings is going to control all of this,” he said. “I think almost every judge is going to have a Zoom calendar and a regular calendar because you cannot get past the time savings on all of this.”
Meanwhile, law firms seem to be carefully considering the best safety measures for their workers – including the use of gloves, masks, hand sanitizers, social distancing and staggered hours – before rushing into reopening their offices.
A Florida Bar representative pointed the Record to recent “best practices” advice provided by the chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, Charles Canady, on how attorneys should navigate the new remote procedures put in place by state courts during the pandemic.
The bar has characterized the move to virtual judicial hearings as a major shift in proceedings since the state court has relied on in-person hearings for 175 years. Canady has also asked a 17-member Covid-19 workgroup to make recommendations for online procedures and other technological changes that could continue after the emergency is over, provided they benefit all those involved in the justice system.
John Stewart, the bar’s president, told Law.com that such changes as video-conferencing for short hearings will lead to cost savings for clients and time savings for attorneys.
And Tannebaum agreed that as attorneys continue to use their time more productively, clients would realize more reasonable costs.
“When leases start to come up, you’re going to see changes in the square footage law firms take,” he said.
Robert Sniffen, the managing partner at Sniffen & Spellman P.A. in Tallahassee, said his firm has also been able to navigate the new normal in legal operations since the coronavirus situation began. The firm has kept clients up to date about employment law issues since the virus shut down major parts of the state economy.
“Our firm has fared well and not missed a beat working from home,” Sniffen told the Record in an email. But he stressed that information technology can’t always be a replacement for face-to-face communication during legal proceedings.
“As a firm that does a lot of litigation, the virtual presence is simply not the same as being there live,” Sniffen said. “Whether it is interviewing witnesses, mediating, taking depositions or simply working with a litigation team at the office, you just cannot replace in-person presence.”