When David Lat, Managing Partner of Lateral Link, contracted COVID-19 back in March, he made the pandemic real and personal for many of us in the legal industry. Three months later, I have him as my last guest on In Seclusion and ask him what lessons we've learned through it all. He gave me three.

It's been a challenging three months of working during a pandemic, an economic crisis, and a time of social upheaval. It's been a pleasure talking with over 70 professionals and having them share their experiences, insights, and predictions with us all. If you haven't caught all of the episodes, I suggest going through the list and picking out a few to binge. Stay safe, healthy, and sane everyone!

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we're in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)

Victoria Hudgins, Reporter at LegalTechNews, reports on the legal tech sector and noticed that some of the first cuts that major law firms made during the pandemic were related to their technology innovation teams. Lawyers and tech staff were subjected to layoffs, furloughs, and pay cuts almost immediately as firms feared a reduction in revenue and work. She wonders what that means for these legal innovation teams. Will firms take their foot off the gas on innovation? How long will law firms continue to invest in these teams? Will the resulting actions be that law firms will have to look externally for innovation once we get beyond the pandemic? Time will tell.

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we’re in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)

Jason Barnwell, Assistant General Counsel of Modern Legal at Microsoft, does not like it when his outside legal counsel comes to him with traditional offerings during a crisis. If there is ever a time to package legal services in a way that helps in-house attorneys manage their limited resources, that time is now. Don't ask the client to define what services you can provide them, come to the client with the knowledge you've learned from all your other clients' needs, and provide insights, and options on how to address current and potential issues. Bring options to the client. The options do not have to be perfect, or unassailable. But they start that conversation to find what the client needs, and how the firms can be creative in helping with that need. 

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we’re in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)

Patrick DiDomenico, the Chief Innovation Officer at Jackson Lewis, says that while Necessity may be the Mother of Invention, Crisis may be the Father of Innovation. And this year is definitely filled with crisis events. While the remote nature of work is a challenge, it has also been a bit of a blessing in disguise. The need to be responsive also enables us to be proactive, and that has helped pull teams together to be innovative and do some really great things. Sometimes the need to respond to a crisis can break the paralysis that plagues some law firms who are looking to be perfect before applying changes to existing processes.

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we’re in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)

Joshua Lenon, Lawyer in Residence at CLIO, works in a cloud-based environment where the idea is to operate consistently, regardless of physical location. And that’s exactly what they have done over the past three-plus months. For others in the legal field to follow this lead, he says that we need to invest more in technology for our staff, as well as shift more operations away from the physical office and more toward cloud systems. Having successful operations like that makes it a lot easier to continue remaining safe and productive remotely until it is safer for all of us to return to an office. 

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we’re in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)

Colin Levy, Legal Technology, and Legal Innovation Thought Leader says that there are a lot of people in the legal industry who are truly trying to innovate, but that innovation does not equal technology, and technology does not equal innovation. There’s a holistic approach that needs to be taken, especially in the middle of a crisis like we have now, and the processes as well as the technology need to be evaluated in order to truly create an innovative environment that is built to last.

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we’re in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)

Craig Levinson is President & Chief Client Developer at Levity Partners and the author of the recent articles “Top 20 Virtual Client Development Tactics Lawyers Can Begin Implementing Immediately,” and “What All Attorneys Can Learn From Female Rainmakers: Panel Recap.” The practice of establishing virtual tactics around client and business development should not be a brand new idea to rainmakers in the legal industry just because we’re in a pandemic. Craig discusses the great rainmakers who have already established virtual tactics around the business by design, and those who are finding themselves establishing virtual tactics by necessity.

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we’re in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)

As many of us were rushing to work from home at the beginning of the pandemic, law firm security teams were scrambling to ensure that the networks and hardware were protected from possible attacks. Joel Lytle, Director of Information Security at Jackson Walker in Dallas, joins me to talk about the process he went through during the initial phase of remote work, how he handled the challenges of so many remote workers, and what the goals are for how we adjust to a hybrid of office and remote work going forward. Maintaining security protocols and updating software and hardware are part of the job, but a potential new part of the job may be making sure that the remote workplace doesn’t become an easy target for security breaches.

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we’re in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)

David Kamien, CEO, and co-founder of Mind Alliance discusses how when COVID-19 began shutting down the economy, law firms opened up a firehose of thought leadership for their clients. While the clients’ inboxes were overflowing with information, and firms were establishing COVID-19 resource pages, the ability for the client to easily search and filter that information was very limited. David thinks that firms are honestly trying to help their clients through the distribution of relevant information, but the way the information is distributed, accessed and indexed is creating barriers for the client that needs to be corrected. The information has to be more consumable by the client and that means organizing it, placing metadata into the information, and giving the user better filtering ability. There needs to be a shared situation awareness between law firms and clients, and not just during a crisis.

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we’re in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)

Danny Norris, Attorney at Law and Trustee at the Harris County Texas Department of Education, discusses his experiences over the past few months of changing jobs, being busy with a full-time Intellectual Property law practice, and elected official. While businesses in Texas are reopening, it is the school system that has continued to find ways of helping students by continuing programs, including providing meals. Danny thinks that as we get closer to August, we will need to determine how we protect the most vulnerable in our society. Whether that is the students as we assess the risk in which we are willing to place them or those who may be subject to eviction as courts lift stay orders over the next couple of months. 

Note: The last episode of In Seclusion will be on June 28th. I have had a fantastic experience bringing these daily episodes to you, and have enjoyed listening to the stories and experiences of others in the legal field as we adjusted to our work routines during a pandemic. I'll still have daily episodes for the next two weeks, so reach out to me if you have ideas, or want to be on the show before it ends. - GL

Remember, we may all be In Seclusion, but we’re in this together.

Host: Greg Lambert (@glambert)