The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the legal profession. Before this life-altering health crisis, most law firms maintained face-to-face business models. Courts generally required in-person preliminary and compliance conferences, despite their relative inefficiency in comparison to telephone or video conferences. When important documents were signed and notarized, everyone traditionally gathered in the same location, even though it would be more convenient and cost effective to notarize documents remotely.

In the last several months, this has all changed. Many law firms have been forced to adapt to a remote-work environment. This can place an unprecedented burden on law firms’ technological capabilities. As if that were not enough, lawyers – like other people – are juggling new challenges, such as educating and entertaining children whose schools will be conducted online this fall. Add to all this the psychological effects: stress over economic uncertainty and a range of emotions in response to media coverage of the pandemic.

These stressors can increase over time, creating unfortunate opportunities for lawyers to make mistakes, which can lead to negative outcomes, such as unhappy clients, loss of business, malpractice liability, and even disciplinary proceedings.

There is some good news. Lawyers are trained to handle new problems and help others do the same. Many lawyers have figured out ways during the pandemic to effectively implement a continuity of operations, better understand technology tools, and best navigate evolving court rules and client expectations.

Maintaining continuity might be the biggest challenge. The pandemic forced lawyers to do this suddenly rather than gradually. Brent Hoeft, of Hoeft Law LLC, Madison, has operated a web-based law practice for many years and also focuses on technology use, security, and ethics in law firms. He says continuity in your law practice is not only necessary but achievable.

“So much is about maintaining routine and finding ways to do that from home. Some things are as simple as getting up at the same time as if you were going to work, getting dressed in clothes you might normally wear to the office, and setting up a designated spot in your home where only work happens. With many people having other family members home as well, it not only provides a personal psychological cue that it is work time but it also gives a nonverbal signal to the family that it is work time and that interruptions should be kept to a minimum.”

Technology can also help to keep continuity when shifting to working from home. To keep in touch with firm members, videoconferencing and team messaging apps can help.

• Videoconferencing: Hoeft suggests having a morning check-in with firm members. This allows everyone to brainstorm over client matters as well as talk about what worked the day before and what didn’t and how things can be improved. He says, “The face to face of videoconferencing helps to maintain the team atmosphere for a firm. It helps all members to be able to see and interact with each other and prevents anyone from feeling like they are out on an island during any of this.”

• Team messaging apps: Messaging apps are a great way to quickly communicate either one to one or more broadly with firm members to keep all necessary people in the loop on matters throughout the day. “When smaller issues arise that don’t necessitate making a phone call or videoconference, sending a message via messaging apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, [or] Chat in GSuite is great,” Hoeft says.

If your firm has Office365’s Business Premium program, you can use the Teams software to do messaging, videoconferencing, and more.

In addition, having a way for all employees to access client files is very important.

Hoeft suggests using a remote access program such as SplashTop, LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, or TeamViewer. “This way is popular because it can be easily set up to allow remote access to law office servers or personal workstations.”

Virtual Offices

Some lawyers are still considering ways to set up a virtual law office. Hoeft says one quick method is by using a web-based practice management software offering.

“There are a lot of options to choose from but some of the biggest and most established players in the market are Clio and MyCase. These practice management systems provide so many tools to keep members of your firm on the same page but also allow clients to stay up on their case and feel connected through the use of client portals …. You can do client scheduling, intake, e-signatures, secure document sharing, secure messaging, and online billing and payments, all from within the practice management system.”

Client Confidentiality

Lawyers’ livelihoods depend, among other things, on the ability to preserve confidentiality and protect client information from unauthorized disclosure to third parties. Comment 8 to SCR 20:1.1 expressly applies the competency requirement to the use of technology and states “[t]o maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology ….”

According to Hoeft, things to consider in taking all reasonable efforts to protect against disclosure include the following:

• Always perform due diligence about any software or service that you are thinking of using as a tool for working from home. There are many options, and the levels of security taken by these providers can vary greatly. If possible, try to stick to services that are geared toward business rather than personal use and, if you can, find some that are designed for use by lawyers and the legal industry.

• Always use a virtual private network (VPN) when connecting to the internet even while on your home network and doing business online. There are a lot of options out there. There are also a lot of review sites that are quite helpful in selecting a VPN. The main thing is to choose a commonly used VPN and always choose the paid version. The free accounts of even good VPNs are not reliable and can be very slow.

• Before starting to use a tool, lawyers must understand the tool and its default settings, which setting options are available to ensure the tool is as secure as possible to use in a law firm setting, and how to change the settings.

Cloud Computing

Wisconsin Ethics Opinion EF-15-01: Ethical Obligations of Attorneys Using Cloud Computing concludes that “cloud computing is permissible as long as the lawyer makes reasonable efforts to adequately address the potential risks associated with it.”

Hoeft says there are only two alternatives for firms of two or more people that plan to work remotely: 1) software that allows gaining remote access into the computer or server in your physical law office and 2) web-based practice management systems. In Hoeft’s opinion, the latter is the way to go, but, he notes, many firms cannot easily switch to that option in the short term.

As for using a separate computer at home for work, Hoeft says, “I would absolutely recommend using a separate computer for work and personal use, if possible. The more personal things you do on the computer like email and social media, the greater the risk of things like phishing, ransomware, viruses, and malware to get onto the system.”

Cybersecurity Considerations

The same cybersecurity risks that are threats at the office exist when working from home. Hoeft says that such threats have increased in frequency during the pandemic.

“The focus of hackers has been the people in the organization, or in the case of lawyers, the firm. People are looked at as the weakest link in the security chain. Humans can be tricked, manipulated, and distracted. Hackers understand the psychology of humans and are quick to take advantage of externalities in the world to leverage against people to prey on their fears, anxiety, and unfamiliarity with the new way to operate business.”

According to Hoeft, the pandemic has led to many phishing scams focusing on people’s desire for information about what is going on with the virus. Hackers are spoofing authoritative agencies such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to trick people into clicking links and opening attachments that are then compromising their system in some way. There also have been scams in which information about stimulus checks is used to tempt people to click on links or attachments.

“Additionally, the huge increase in the use of Zoom for videoconferencing has not gone unnoticed by hackers. They are targeting businesses through fraudulent videoconference invites that will either take you to fake landing pages meant to steal your login credentials or launch ransomware attacks. There also has been a huge increase in the number of domains that have been purchased over the past couple of weeks that have domain names that are very similar or that could easily be mistaken for a legitimate Zoom webpage domain. [It is likely that] hackers are buying these domains to use in connection with phishing campaigns.”

Hoeft says the best way to stay on top of phishing and ransomware is to make sure your staff is educated and trained on cybersecurity awareness, so they have the tools to spot these threats.

He also recommends using a VPN, “both while you are trying to access your law firm server via remote access software but also when you are doing anything else online. For privacy and security reasons you should be connected to a VPN while you are on the internet.”

Hoeft also encourages lawyers to have antivirus software installed and updated. In addition, he says, “Make sure you update the operating system [and other programs] as soon as security updates come out. … Stay on top of [software updates because] many of the updates may be patching security holes.”

Conclusion

Hoeft reminds lawyers to keep track of what is and isn’t working well during the pandemic and regularly discuss the topic at videoconference meetings with your firm’s lawyers and other staff. “Some things may not be able to be implemented for the short term but still make notes of these so you can change the way you do things in the future…. Much of what we’re doing now will become [or] has become permanent. So look to the future when determining how best to maintain your law firm operations.”

If you do not have written law firm operation policies, both for “normal” times and for crises and emergencies, now is the time to create them. Hoeft says, “These include work-from-home policies, information-security policies, business-disaster policies, and security awareness and training policies. They are all good to have so everyone in your firm knows where to turn to in a crisis rather than everything being done in a reactionary way.”

Unfortunately, we all had to react quickly in March when the pandemic hit in the United States. For lawyers, resuming and continuing good work means maintaining great client service, having sound technology security, and being as efficient has possible, even during these highly unusual times.