Law firms. Pandemic Pivot

• Author: Danielle Braff
• Pages: 26-27

Business of Law | LAW FIRMS

LAW FIRMS

Pandemic

Pivot

The coronavirus has forced many

lawyers to reinvent themselves—

and some have become ‘COVID-19

attorneys’

BY DANIELLE BRAFF

The coronavirus has affected

every aspect of life, from

employment to housing to

travel to child safety. And

while some law rms have closed their

doors within the last few months, oth-

ers are simply adjusting their focus. In

fact, some lawyers have switched focus

entirely, becoming full-time “COVID

attorneys.”

“When the pandemic rst broke in

March, there was a natural pivot for

employment practices because business-

es were desperate for information on

how to manage their workplaces,”

says Justin Boron, a partner at the

Philadelphia-based Freeman Mathis &

Gary rm.

Boron’s rm—like nearly every

other—hadn’t previously dealt with the

legal issues arising from a pandemic,

and the government administrative

agencies hadn’t issued any guidance

specic to COVID-19, he says. “So we

had to take a deep dive into the existing

regulations in similar contexts to give

the best advice to clients that we could

give at the time,” Boron says.

When it became clear COVID-19

was precipitating an economic crisis,

Congress acted, passing a coronavirus

relief bill in March 2020. A large part

of the legislation focused on employ-

ee pay and benets, so Boron’s rm

tracked this to be able to advise its

employer clients.

The rm formed a coronavirus task

force, which Boron co-chairs, and he

says there has been an uptick in small-

and medium-size businesses retaining

the rm to advise on COVID-19 issues,

ranging from the Paycheck Protection

Program to mandatory leave laws.

“The new programs and their maze

of red tape have created at least a

temporary market for legal advice that

wasn’t there before,” Boron says.

Others have seen their practices

shift for more predictable reasons. Ben

Schneider, of Schneider & Stone in

Skokie, Illinois, is a bankruptcy law-

yer, so he’s been very busy since the

start of the coronavirus. Some of his

clients need help taking advantage of

the changes in the bankruptcy code.

Others are dealing with issues related

to the sudden loss of income because of

pandemic-related layoffs or furloughs

and/or increased expenses (food for

kids at home, additional child care for

e-learning, etc.). “I am not allowed to

say that I specialize,” he says. “But I

would say that 100% of my practice is

now COVID bankruptcy law.”

Elder law is another area that’s been

fundamentally remade by COVID-19.

John Dalli, a partner with Dalli &

Marino in New York, says he became a

COVID-19 attorney overnight. His rm

had been investigating nursing home

and elder abuse cases in the New York

area for more than two decades, and

the pandemic brought to light many of

the problems plaguing the industry.

“Nursing homes throughout the

state of New York were hard-hit by the

virus, and our clients lost many loved

ones—so overnight, my rm turned into

a COVID law rm helping families nav-

igate the issues facing them as a result

of having a loved one in a nursing home

struck by the coronavirus.”

To prepare, Dalli says he immedi-

ately had to learn everything he could

about the virus, how it spread, and par-

ticularly how it affected nursing home

residents. He created a new page on his

website as a resource center for clients.

Shortly after the coronavirus hit, Dalli

began to speak out about the effect of

the virus on nursing home residents and

particularly, how the pandemic revealed

the understafng crisis that had existed

in these facilities for years—which

cemented his position as a COVID-19

attorney.

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ABA JOURNAL | APRIL–MAY 2021

26

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