The Geek in Review Ep. 69 – What Should Law Firms Do To Prepare for a Possible COVID-19 Epidemic? With the ALA’s April Campbell

• Restrict travel to hotspots
• 14-day work from home policies for personnel who have traveled to those areas, or were exposed to others who may have traveled to hotspots
• Stress that sick employees stay home
• Explain proper handwashing techniques
• And LOTS OF HAND SANITIZER

Transcript

[00:00:00] Greg Lambert: Before we start this, I feel like the guy in Zombieland. It’s like, Purell.

[00:00:16] Marlene Gebauer: Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

[00:00:24] Greg Lambert: And I’m Greg Lambert. So Marlene, we’re doing something just a little bit different on this episode, where we are actually only going to cover one topic.

[00:00:34] Marlene Gebauer: And that’s, that’s, that’s gonna be so hard.

[00:00:37] Greg Lambert: Well, the topic is what the legal industry needs to do to prepare for a possible pandemic with the COVID-19 or the coronavirus, as it’s known.

[00:00:47] Marlene Gebauer: So we asked April Campbell, the Interim Executive Director for the Association of Legal Administrators, to talk with us about the need to update disaster recovery manuals for this type of health emergency.

[00:00:59] Greg Lambert: So while the outbreak in the US is still minimal, the trajectory of COVID-19 could be very broad. So as of this taping, which is on Thursday afternoon, the state of California just announced that it had confirmed 30 cases of the virus, and is monitoring some 8000 additional people for possible exposure.

[00:01:19] Marlene Gebauer: I imagine that by the time people are listening to this, it may be a bigger number than that. It’s becoming all the talk around social media, and even American Lawyer Media has a special section on its law.com website dedicated to the COVID-19 news. Today’s big news was that OREC canceled its partner retreat to avoid possible exposure to the virus.

[00:01:39] Greg Lambert: Now, Marlene, I’ve been reaching out to a number of members of the legal profession over the past couple of days to get their reaction and see if their workplaces have established any protocols on what they would do if the virus struck their attorneys, the employees, or even students. So, and I have to say that the general consensus is that the reaction is very slow. Thoughts and prayers were talked about as well. Luckily, that was, I think, just jokingly from a colleague. At least I hope he was just joking. But typically, the answers have been along the lines that there’s no travel to hotspots. There’s a 14-day work from home if you have traveled or been in contact with someone who has been to those hotspots. Of course, wash your hands.

[00:02:30] Marlene Gebauer: That is good advice, but I’m not, I’m not sure that that’s going to combat what we’re talking about here.

[00:02:37] Greg Lambert: It’s not going to hurt. It’s not going to hurt. That’s true.

[00:02:40] Marlene Gebauer: Wash your hands.

[00:02:40] Greg Lambert: Wash your hands, people. So I did get a couple of examples of communication alerts. One was from a college and one was from a municipality. So the city of San Francisco put out an alert to its employees. And I thought it was actually pretty well worded. In fact, I reached out to one of the guests from our last episode on writing in plain English, Chris Trudeau from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. And he even agreed.

[00:03:05] Marlene Gebauer: The San Francisco Declaration of a Local Emergency had four sections. First, identifying those employees who are designated as disaster service workers and their obligations. Two, remind employees to maintain a respectful work environment and that the risk of getting the virus is not based on someone’s race, ethnicity, or culture. Three, straightforward advice on protecting yourself from exposure to the virus. And four, where to get authoritative updates as things change. The common sense approach they’d list out is simply to wash your hands, cover coughs and sneezes, don’t touch your face, stay at home if you’re sick, get a flu shot to avoid the seasonal flu, and see a medical professional if you are ill. Chris Trudeau also sent us a link to the Center of Disease Control’s material on the topic. He mentioned that it’s pretty well done and easy to understand. While not perfect, it’s still pretty good. And he says that lawyers could learn from the CDC’s example on the power of clarity and clear messaging during a crisis. There are a few posters that can be hung up in the office place and we’ll link those at the show notes.

[00:04:13] Greg Lambert: So one of the comments that I’ve seen a lot on social media is that people in the U.S. should worry more about the seasonal flu than the COVID-19. While that may be true for the moment and people should get the flu vaccine, there are significant differences between the two. The mortality rate of the seasonal flu is typically around 0.1 percent. And according to the Chinese report on the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, the mortality rate is 2.3 percent. So it’s over 20 times as high. And while this is significantly lower than, say, the avian flu in the 1990s, which was actually around 20 percent, it’s the transmission of the COVID-19 from person to person that is much easier, that makes this a little bit more of a dangerous disease. And it’s much more contagious than other variations of the coronavirus that we’ve seen in the past. So not to be an alarmist here, but get ready, there are many people that are comparing this to the 1918-1919 Spanish flu outbreak because these have similar characteristics and mortality rates.

[00:05:24] Marlene Gebauer: The facts seem to suggest that this might be a big deal in the near future. And for the legal industry, it’s better to prepare for the worst and hope for the best than it would be not to be adequately prepared. And I think that probably goes for all industries. So we would love to hear what your organization is doing to prepare for a possible outbreak of the COVID-19. Please send us an email at geekinreviewpodcast at gmail.com or leave a voice message on our hotline at 713-487-7270 and describe some of the extra efforts or changes in the policy at your workplace.

[00:06:03] Greg Lambert: Even if the COVID-19 virus turns out to be a non-issue, there’s still a lot of opportunities to test things like work from home policies and to put technology to the test on working remotely. It would be interesting to me to see if any organization would do a massive test on their infrastructure before this hits, like running trials, say, ask half of their employees to stay home. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? I don’t know.

[00:06:32] Marlene Gebauer: It would definitely be interesting.

[00:06:34] Greg Lambert: I would be curious to see if a firm’s infrastructure can sustain that kind of a load. And to me, it’d be better to test it now than to test it during an emergency.

[00:06:43] Marlene Gebauer: The question is, will that actually happen?

[00:06:45] Greg Lambert: Probably not. But if your firm does it, I want to know.

[00:06:49] Marlene Gebauer: Yes, we do want to know. We do want to know. The sense of the unknown around this potential outbreak is one of the reasons that we asked April Campbell to join us.

[00:06:56] Greg Lambert: April Campbell to join us.

[00:06:58] Marlene Gebauer: The membership of the Association of Legal Administrators is filled with operations and human resource leaders, many from law firms. They range from small and mid-sized firms all the way up to those firms with thousands of employees and offices around the world. So we were very happy when we heard that our friend Toby Brown was having dinner with the interim executive director and had him ask her if she would talk to us.

[00:07:21] Greg Lambert: I’d like to welcome April Campbell, the interim executive director at the Association of Legal Administrators, or ALA. April, thanks for joining us on the Geek & Review.

[00:07:36] Marlene Gebauer: You bet.

[00:07:38] Greg Lambert: All right. So we’ve got a very hot button issue, and I appreciate you taking the time. We just reached out to you literally last night and get you on the phone today. where we wanted to talk about the COVID-19 or coronavirus and the effects that that’s going to have, especially on law firms or within the legal industry, on the disaster recovery and business continuity issues. While most of the firms have these DR or business continuity manuals, there may not be a specific section that covers things like pandemics, especially things specifically like the coronavirus or COVID-19. What do you suggest an administration at the law firm or even a law school or a government office do to help review and or update these policies?

[00:08:32] April Campbell: office do to help review and or update these policies? Well, I think a lot of large law firms have business continuity plans or disaster recovery, but I think a lot of small and mid-sized firms do not. I think the recommendations are different for both for the small and mid-sized firms. I think a lot of them think about it and talk about it. And I would say now is a great time to put something into place, even just a skeleton structure. And I know a lot of firms that have the business continuity plans do annual reviews or even exercises, but a lot of them are focused on natural disasters or other type things. So I would say to pull it out and look through it with your team and through the lens of a pandemic and think about all of the things that may happen. You know, there’s a lot of times we think, well, that won’t affect our business. But then if, for example, if all schools and daycares closed, how would that affect your workforce and their ability to work from home? So thinking about how to continue business as usual when systems are not necessarily down, but the ability to travel and move about, you know, one city or work environment.

[00:09:53] Greg Lambert: I know, well, being in Houston, like I am, hurricanes are the big thing that we talk about. But I imagine something like this might have some similarities to what you would do in a hurricane or really any type of natural disaster. And I would say one thing is there may be, worst comes to worst, there may actually be some type of quarantine that may happen. So which I don’t think anyone has a disaster recovery process that talks about a quarantine. I think this might be one of those chances where you really kind of get in the room and you throw every possibility up on the wall to see what you think would stick for a pandemic.

[00:10:37] April Campbell: Right. And probably with a strong, well, with a strong emphasis on what can your technology sustain. I think that, especially in a quarantine situation or even with other closures or clampdowns on transportation within cities, a lot of our businesses rely on our employees to get to work via public transportation, that sort of thing. to think about how to create that flexible environment where the work can still get done, but people can do it from home. And a lot of firms have their lawyers set up to work remotely, but not necessarily the support staff, and to think about that.

[00:11:14] Marlene Gebauer: Okay, so when you’re talking about lawyer setup, what about the bandwidth for that? What happens when all of these people try to access the network remotely? And what about the strain that puts not only on the network, but on the infrastructure as a whole? How do you prepare for that?

[00:11:31] April Campbell: Yeah, well, that’s, I think you need to test some of that and find out, you know, what are the limitations of your current technology. And, I think law firms struggle with being flexible, like a lot of other corporations have been able to be. And this could be a great opportunity to try, some things like alternative work schedules or, rotating schedules with support staff where everybody is not trying to work from 8 to 5 or whatever the standard work schedule is. It could be a great opportunity for firms to experiment with different ways of working.

[00:12:11] Greg Lambert: Yeah. I was just wondering on a side note, what about those employees who may be hourly where they may not have a laptop? Or traditionally, we don’t allow them to do things from home. They have to be in the office. How do you handle that?

[00:12:29] April Campbell: Yeah, I think right now is a great time to start looking at that and think about, what are those jobs where you feel like people absolutely need to be in the office and think about whether that’s accurate or not. I know the thought was always, well, receptionist or someone has to be there to answer the phones. And now there are a lot of other services that you could implement, you know, or forward phones and things like that. So just to start thinking through how are you going to utilize your staff people? And if nobody’s in the office, maybe some of those services that they typically provide are not going to be needed and how could you use them in other ways. And then to have everybody do a technology assessment with their own personal needs and what they would need and look at the firm budget to see, if there are components that you’re going to need to supply or ask people to have. I think this is a great time to look at, see what’s in your budget, you know, and where you’ve got some wiggle room because you might have some unintended expenditures this year.

[00:13:29] Marlene Gebauer: Could you think of some scenarios where firms would partner with others to help support clients or even with various organizations? So for example, libraries have teamed up where there have been disasters and access isn’t available. Sometimes libraries will help out or vendors will step in and help. I’m curious about that.

[00:13:51] April Campbell: Yeah, I think this is a great example of where associations come into play and that community support that they offer, whether it be, ILTA or ALA or Bar Association. We’ve had in Seattle, we’ve had a couple instances where there have been things like big block of power outages, that sort of things, and firms have reached out to each other and offered space or staff or other services to help each other out in the time of need. It’s a great example of why a community is important to provide. Everybody wants things to keep on moving in the best way possible and use it as a time to support each other. And sometimes that sharing space, I know along the West Coast, a lot of firms have backup space in case of an earthquake or that sort of thing, and have come into sharing agreements with other firms or clients even, knowing that they could share a space in that time of need. And this would be another example where, you know, you could do that.

[00:14:57] Greg Lambert: Speaking of large firms, the firms that have foreign offices, especially those that have those offices in the hotspots across the globe, which right now would be China, South Korea, Italy, and I’m sure that list will grow. What should those firms be thinking about when it comes to both travel and just with interaction with the employees of those offices?

[00:15:23] April Campbell: I think we’re seeing it in the news already, what a lot of the larger firms are doing. Some have decided to close offices completely in those areas. Others that are having employees that are traveling to and from those offices, some sort of like a 14 day quarantine where they work from home until they integrate themselves back into their home office. I think it’s really a case-by-case basis. I know, I think one firm announced they’d postponed their partner meeting just so as to keep everybody from having to travel and congregate together. I think there’s a little bit of a fear about bringing people together from all over and potential contact or spread. But I think it really depends on what’s good for your business and your clients. I know a lot of firms right now are advising clients on steps to take and things to do.

[00:16:41] Marlene Gebauer: It’s a good time to promote video, right?

[00:16:44] April Campbell: Definitely. I think it’s, yeah, I mean, it’s a great time to think about a couple things. I mean, it makes you realize how global everything is, you know, when you kind of follow the bouncing ball.

[00:17:05] Greg Lambert: Well, and you mentioned client interactions. What is it that lawyers should be doing to screen clients before either bringing them into the office or going for a client visit at the client’s office?

[00:17:18] April Campbell: I think having that conversation. I was just, I just flew back from Scandinavia three days ago. And before I got on the plane, they asked me where I’d been in the last 14 days and who I’d had contact with. But the environment that we’re in right now, I think it’s expected that everybody kind of fully disclose where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing and, you know, for the good of everyone.

[00:18:12] Greg Lambert: Yeah. So if there were a situation where there are a lot of employees who are asked to work from home, I think right now we’re doing it on a case by case. More importantly, I think managers struggle with this. So what is it that managers need to do to adapt to when their employees are not physically located in their normal workspaces?

[00:18:57] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, to make sure the work is getting done.

[00:19:00] April Campbell: Right. Well, and I think there are a lot of good tools out there right now, kind of checklists or tips and tricks on how to manage a remote work staff. So a lot of firms already have the technology set up where they can tell what their employees are doing, or how often they’re in their email or surfing the web, that sort of thing. I mean, a Zoom account goes a really long way with making people feel that they’re connected and empowering the managers. To work with their teams in the way that they feel they need to. So if they’re used to having, you know, daily check-ins with people that they still do that, but just in a, you know, in a video format or on the phone. And you know, Zoom works on a cell phone even.

[00:20:20] Greg Lambert: Marlene’s on it right now.

[00:20:23] April Campbell: So I think there’s a lot of tools out there that people have not thought about. So I would say to make sure that all the managers know what tools are out there would be the main thing. And that the managers themselves have the support.

[00:20:35] Greg Lambert: I’ve always heard, you know, take advantage of every emergency situation. And you’re right, I think this gives us an opportunity, especially for the technology that we’ve developed and bought and implemented over the past decade to get this going.

[00:20:52] Marlene Gebauer: This brings up the issue of change management and getting people to change. When an emergency happens and people aren’t available to work with the people that they’re used to working with, what sort of steps should firms take in that regard?

[00:21:06] April Campbell: I think some firms do a very good job of training and others do not. Some have great libraries of training videos or links to documents that are step-by-step access things that people don’t look at until they’re in trouble or no one’s available. But to make sure all of that is up to date.

[00:21:26] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, the just-in-time training.

[00:21:28] April Campbell: That’s right. That’s right. But to make sure all that information is up to date and that people know where to find it, if it’s located on something that is hard for people to access, to think about those types of things. Do you need to, I mean, maybe you need to print out some tip sheets so people have things in hard copy, to really think about what may happen and what people will need and just to be prepared. Because I think a lot of firms say, oh, we have all that. But then to think through the process about how to access it or how to make sure people understand what it is or where to get additional information is kind of left out of that.

[00:22:08] Greg Lambert: Hopefully you’ve been around long enough that this would not be the first health scare or pandemic. So like back in 2009, there was the H1N1 virus that was going around. Do you see any way that firms have learned from that or do you think that’s been too long of a time pass and we’ve kind of gone back into old habits?

[00:22:33] April Campbell: I do think that firms have gotten a little better about, I think there’s a strong culture among law firms that people still need to be in the office. And there’s this guilt that goes around when somebody feels sick and they feel like they need to come in the office anyway, or the firm somehow subconsciously pressures their employees to come in even when they’re not feeling well. And I feel like especially even just with the flu outbreaks and things like that, that firms have gotten better about giving their employees permission to stay home when they’re not feeling well. I think technology has improved and gotten better so that firms are more comfortable with remote working and that when people aren’t in the office, it doesn’t mean they’re watching TV all day. Things like that, that they’re more comfortable with the accountability component of their employees because of just the way that a lot of firms have been having to practice, you know, to accommodate talent. Talent is hard to come by more and more lately. And I think firms are becoming a little more flexible with what work looks like from their employees. So I think a couple of things have changed, whether or not firms have learned from other pandemics. I’m not sure. I think it’s probably a case by case basis. It depends who’s in charge.

[00:23:57] Greg Lambert: Yeah, just out of curiosity, your membership is mostly firm, right? Or is it all firm?

[00:24:03] April Campbell: It’s probably about 95 percent private law firms.

[00:24:07] Greg Lambert: OK, do you have any court or school members?

[00:24:11] April Campbell: We have a few.

[00:24:13] Greg Lambert: Have you have you heard anything from them regarding this yet?

[00:24:16] April Campbell: I have not. I know some law school programs are canceling their, you know, their study abroad programs, things like that. But I have not heard much else. I think everybody’s pretty much on a wait and see basis. I know today I think I saw the first case in the U.S. of unidentified origin or something like that. So, you know, I think everybody’s been thinking, we’ll just wait and see what happens. But it’s definitely a hot topic. I know a lot of our we have discussion boards and listservs and everybody’s asking, you know, what what are you doing? What are you doing to prepare?

[00:24:56] Greg Lambert: Yeah, it’s a good time to share those disaster recovery and business continuity.

[00:25:02] April Campbell: Definitely. And I would say, yeah, if you don’t have one, reach out to somebody and get a copy of theirs.

[00:25:09] Greg Lambert: Absolutely. Oh, no.

[00:25:11] April Campbell: The last thing I was going to say is the CDC has some great resources for businesses and a lot of it’s common sense. But it doesn’t you know, something like that certainly doesn’t hurt to to share with your management teams.

[00:25:23] Greg Lambert: Hey, sometimes common sense is the is the best medicine. So. All right. Well, April Campbell from A.L.A., thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us today.

[00:25:34] April Campbell: Thanks for having me. All right.

[00:25:36] Greg Lambert: Bye bye. So, Marlene, I think the lesson here is to make sure that we are prepared for the worst and that we hope for the best. Exactly. Once again, I would love to hear what your organization is doing to prepare for a possible outbreak of covid-19. And if you’re doing something, please send us either an email at GeekandReviewPodcast at gmail.com or leave us a voice message on our hotline at 713-487- 7270 and describe some of the extra efforts or changes in policy at your workplace. It could very well be that COVID-19 turns out to be a smaller epidemic than we thought, but there’s no need to let a good emergency go to waste. So get those disaster recovery and business continuance policies updated and do some heavy testing of your network and infrastructure. Now is the time to make those big decisions on what to do with issues like non-exempt employees, should there be an extended work from home requirement. The better prepared your organization is now, the less of a struggle you will have should the outbreak affect business operations.

[00:26:47] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, please everybody, stay healthy. Take care of yourselves.

[00:26:51] Greg Lambert: Wash your hands. And Marlene, would you like some Purell?

[00:26:57] Marlene Gebauer: Don’t cough on me. Before we go, we want to remind listeners to take the time to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Rate and review us as well. If you have comments about today’s show or suggestions for a future show, you can reach us on Twitter at Gabe Bauer M or at Glambert. Or you can call the Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270, or e-mail us at geekinreviewpodcasts at gmail.com. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David Disica. Thank you, Jerry.

[00:27:31] Speaker E: Thanks, Jerry. All right, Marlene, I will talk to you later.

[00:27:35] Marlene Gebauer: All right, ciao for now.