Big Meech weren't you a partner at a pretty big firm and left to take an associate position so you wouldn’t have to work as much? And you don’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to fly across the country from Seattle to Florida during covid? What?
No. I left a big firm for a smaller boutique. As far as Covid, just think it’s time to get back to normal or as reasonably as possible.
The partner whose case it is could go to Florida for the deposition. That’s the part that bothered me.
Taking my first deposition since this began next week. Defense lawyers have been pushing me hard on a lot of cases about wanting to take in person depos of my clients on run of mill soft tissue MVAs. I’ve finally given in.
I took several zoom depositions and they were pretty worthless. I’m glad I didn’t try to do any in cases with real exposure.
If you have a Lenovo laptop like all the big firms love there’s a travel monitor (razor thin) you can get to mimic the dual screen from being in the office.
Actually did a telephone mediation, not zoom, last week. Ended up being successful. Not sure the mediator understands zoom.
I’ve done a handful of zoom mediations and they generally involve me telling the mediator to call me so I don’t have to stay by my computer the entire time
You also can’t effectively use exhibits, gauge witness reactions, or tell what they’re looking at. Most insurance carriers cut travel time to 1/2 rate anyway, so you lose money traveling instead of working. I’d love for zoom depositions to be able to replace driving two hours to get paid for one.
Any other fellow transactional lawyers in here? Given our jobs are already so set up to be remote curious when you guys think you’ll be back in an office? I figure even when they open ours they’ll ask the transactional people to stay home so I’m guessing months at a minimum.
Yeah, this is an older lawyer so that’s how he wanted to do it, but I think it worked better than it would otherwise. Plaintiff went to his office and then he just caucused the Defendants by phone. Wasn’t a super high dollar case, but it worked.
Did an in person depo of a lay witness two weeks ago. We all had on masks. Have a bunch of doctor depos in the next two weeks and other import witness depos. Some of the doctors demanded zoom and defense lawyers didn’t object surprisingly.
Personal appearance for depos is really case dependent for me. In general, if it's the plaintiff, my client (or employees of my client) and my own experts, then I will be there live. If it's the opposing party's experts, then it depends on a lot of factors like whether I've dealt with them before, what types of exhibits will be used, whether the opposing counsel will be there, etc. I did a plaintiff via Zoom the other day, but only because I already met her during a presuit unsworn statement, so there was no need to size her up a second time. It worked out fine, other than she is an 80 year old lady and I had to stare at her forehead and top of her head for 90% of the depo because she couldn't figure out how to adjust her camera right.
Haha I'm going to start adjusting the camera to do this during my client's zoom deposition. Or point it at their mouth and zoom in.
I'd go for the up-nostril view. That's a great one, too. I laughed my ass of the other day because we had a Zoom-based case management conference, and you could tell the judge was wearing a t-shirt under his robe. He also did the thing where he chose a background that looks like a courtroom, but every so often when he moved his arms it would reveal the room behind him and I could see he was in his bedroom and had his golf outfit laid out on his bed, presumably to hit the course as soon as the hearing was done.
About a month ago, my firm penciled in May 11th as the date attorneys (not staff) “could” return to the office, and the powers that be are sticking to it. Spoke to a few partners yesterday, and they plan to be in the office Monday. Aside from the elevators and bathrooms, our office setup is actually pretty good for social distancing and people can just go to their office and close the door. No clients allowed in the building and no staff for a week or 2. No/limited use of conference rooms. I think what’s happening is that a lot of the older partners don’t work very well outside the office, so they’ve pressured firm management into reopening (even though a few partners have gone in every day for the last 2 months). Firm management also acknowledged we may have to close down the office again, so they aren’t ignoring science. I think it’s silly and do not want to go back at this point since it’s needlessly putting older folks and myself at risk. However, there’s undue pressure to do so, so I’ve tossed out a few excuses (wife’s car died) and will probably only go in Monday to show my face and then continue working from home the remainder of the week. Not sure about the following week. I’m going to put on a suit, a tie, and a ski gaiter with dia de los muertos skulls on it to go in to the office, be seen, and then shut my door and continue working like I have for the last 6 weeks. Again, it’s silly, and if I had kids I wouldn’t even bother and would just use them as an excuse
We are opening 5/20 We all have our own offices and a lot of my staff have been coming in 1-3x a week already I think to just get out of the house/away from their families
We can go back in Monday. But no more than 7 ppl in the office at once. So you have to inform a partner if you are gonna come in. Might pop in once or twice but will continue to work from home if I can. We’ve been told to wear masks in common areas and the kitchen. Seems easier to just stick with my set up
One of my experts is being deposed on Thursday via Zoom. Multiple defendants with a lot of documents, authoritative technical research documents, etc. I assume it will be an absolute shit show and will last past 5 pm.
had an absurd version of this today. Prepared a filing extremely similar to one filed in the same district 3-4 months ago. Get an email back: "looks ready to go, but the word response in paragraph xx doesn't need to be capitalized." Check the 3 month old filing, and yep, Response is capitalized. I swear some people have to make some revision or else they'll combust.
After my experience last week, I am going to try my absolute damndest to avoid anything important via zoom. Its not worth it.
I had a pretty good zoom deposition of my client's treating physician and nurse practitioner yesterday. Only hiccup was our internet went out for like 2 minutes and I dropped during OC's cross. I had to finish the depo on the zoom app on my phone it wasn't a big deal.
won’t be any kind of distinction like that with us, but given that a lot of NYC companies are saying they won’t even be back in the office until the end of the year, I don’t think it’ll be anytime soon for me. I’m definitely relishing all the boomer partners realizing we *meant* it when we associates said we would easily work from home efficiently and no client issues would arise
my guess is we will be allowed in the office in June or July but not required until a vaccine. commercial real estate is going to take a bloodbath now that everyone discovered telecommuting.
If I may ask, who do you represent in M&A? I “left” M&A for real estate private equity, and there’s quite a bit of overlap between the two practices but personally I’m seeing national players resume deals. ETA: TBH it’s weird because you’d think things would slow down as you’re alluding, but I’m seeing guys taking advantage of buying opportunities so the amount of deal work is remaining somewhat the same
I’m at a large firm with a big client base so it’s all over the place. A few fortune 50s, more 500s, and then some PE work for NYC shops (but no funds work, just private M&A). I’ve got two sell-sides going in pre-bidder stage, one is on pause as it’s airline servicing related, other is still full steam ahead except who knows how many bidders will end up actually being interested. All in all, pretty slow. When I first started I dabbled in some restructuring work including the M&A sides of 363 sales so looking to leverage that soon. We have tons of institutional clients who will need to file at some point. PE shops had dry powder for years so they’re chomping at the bit now for lower valuations on targets. This is their moment they’ve been waiting years for.
Was told "not before June 1" but seeing as how Indy is still kind of a shitshow I'd be moderately surprised if it's required before the 4th of July break
As someone who left Deloitte’s M&A practice, that makes sense. Best of luck surviving off Consulting.
Watched SC Supreme Court oral arguments via WebX in our absentee voting case. Definitely a weird experience. Also, one of our justices lost his video connection twice and then had issues when he tried to call in to the conference as well. They've still got some work to do.
Meh. Associates may be able to work at home fairly efficiently as their work lends itself to simply being in front of a computer. The partners who are interacting with clients don't have that luxury. I'd warn any younger associates ITT to not get too comfortable thinking that you are meeting all the partner/client needs by working from home. Face time is important.
You’re right about all these things and I’m not advocating for a permanent WFH policy in law. I’m suggesting that this was a forced experiment that is an extreme (7 days a week WFH) that has proven its efficacy once things are back to normal (say, three or four days a month WFH).
Strong disagree. Even re: "client" face time, work from home doesn't mean you can't take clients out to lunch/dinner when they are in town.
Some of the best ideas come from random face to face discussions in the office. Most partners don't want to chase down their associates. They want to go to the office next door. That's just the way most folks are and the associates that are in the office will be looked upon more favorably. I've had this same discussion in partner meetings at my old firm.
I had a defense lawyer agree to do some depositions via zoom only to have the carrier (Amfed IIRC) tell him they won't pay for or agree to do any zoom depositions.
It may not be worth the fight, but is there no rule binding a client to attorney agreements (or in discovery)? I know sc has a couple rules I'd use in that situation.
Then the opposing counsel ends up eating the cost of the deposition because he didn’t get approval from the carrier before agreeing to it. Don’t do that.