Page 24 - Delaware Lawyer - Fall 2020

FEATURE
The last few months have been different, to be sure, but they are not necessarily the harbinger of a new era and different way of life. Humans are social creatures. The practice of law is a social practice. Even solo practitioners need interaction.
collaborative areas” as the wave of the future. It was what hip young millenni- als wanted. It was what they were used to. Law firms would have to adapt. But guess what happened? Those “open” and “collaborative” areas are slowly getting changed back to offices and conference rooms. Turns out that once millennials started practicing law, they realized the benefits of offices and conference rooms (and, besides, what client would ever be happy knowing his or her case was be- ing discussed out in the open for anyone walking by, including other clients and guests, to hear?).
And so, my suggestion, good contrar- ian that I am, would be that we not get carried away. We should not assume that law offices will become obsolete and that law firms will become nothing more than a group of individuals scattered across the 50 states, speaking to each other via Zoom and WebEx, and emailing docu- ments back and forth to each other.
The last few months have been differ- ent, to be sure, but they are not necessari- ly the harbinger of a new era and different way of life. Humans are social creatures. The practice of law is a social practice. Even solo practitioners need interaction.
Eventually, we will be returning to our offices (some of us are there already). Perhaps then we’ll see that, in many ways, practicing with other attorneys, in the same office suite, offers advantages that we don’t realize, at the moment, we are missing. The future can be hard to pre- dict. Time and again, people have made predictions about the future practice of law, and time and again, those predictions have proven wrong. Working remotely can work, and at times might make sense, but I would suggest it is not the ideal situation for most people most of the time. Let’s be careful about the generalizations we try to draw from the last several months, and let’s recognize the many benefits there are from being in an office environment.
But let’s not get carried away.
And let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
While the last few months have been, in many ways, liberating, or even exciting, as we get to practice law in t-shirts and running shorts (or worse) in our own home environments, there are some things that home-based practices don’t provide, or indeed, hinder.
There is something, indeed much, to be said for the practice of law in offices with other lawyers, and while the last few months may have felt liberating in many ways, there have also been a number of losses.
How easy is it to have a short, five- minute conversation with another attorney who, up until a few months ago, was just down the hall? You have a ques- tion, or you want to bounce an idea off of him or her — the type of thing that lawyers in firms routinely do, sometimes a few times a day. I have a thought and ask you for your thoughts. It takes all of five minutes (or less). But have you tried doing that in our virtual new world? I call you on your cell phone, but you’re on Zoom. You call me back 45 minutes later, but I’m on WebEx. And so we play phone tag. Why not just send an email, you ask? Because emails often devolve into their own back and forth, and can be a slower form of communication than the short conversation we could have had at the of- fice. I send an email, only to wait two to three hours before you respond — and
your response asks for more information or clarification, or makes a suggestion that doesn’t work. So I respond, then you respond again, and soon it’s been a whole day; meanwhile, a client is wondering why I haven’t gotten back to them yet. It’s these short, informal conversations that often make our lawyering better or more comprehensive or more robust, but they just don’t happen (or don’t easily hap- pen) in a virtual world.
And what about mentoring? How much more difficult is it to “mentor” young attorneys when you’re not in the same room, let alone the same building? Answer: a lot, when it is attempted at all. It’s too easy to overlook the valuable role that mentoring plays when you’re not in daily face-to-face contact with younger attor- neys. Ironically, while I think younger at- torneys may think they like this brave new world, I don’t think they realize the many benefits being in an office affords.
What about the proverbial water cooler and other informal opportunities to chat? Gone. One of your colleagues is going through a hard time because one of their parents is ill. Without daily interactions, do you even know? How can you lend support? To a certain extent, I think we have all been “coasting” off of the friend- ships we have built with colleagues over the years — but time apart will fray any friendship, and hinders the formation of new ones.
I remember a time when law firm consultants were touting “open,
22 DELAWARE LAWYER FALL 2020