COVID-19’s effect on your practice check in Forum

[Anonymous User]

They are getting VERY aggressive with time estimates. If you forget you get an email first thing in the morning. So fucking obnoxious.

[Anonymous User]

Mid-level real estate/corp associate in secondary market. My department is basically at a stand-still. Multiple transactions went pencils down this week & last (mostly due to lenders pressing pause.) I'm closing a long-term development deal on Monday & then have nothing else on my to-do list. I plan to spend the weekend reaching out to partners in the larger corporate group to see if they need help.

A little over a month ago, I started interviewing for lateral roles in a market closer to home. Big firm hiring has now completely stopped in that market. Now, even if they pick up again, I don't want to be the "new guy" in the middle of a shaky economy... so, I guess I'll be staying put for the foreseeable future.

[Anonymous User]

Junior in an M&A group, my firm also pushed daily closing of hours in our timekeeping software when we went remote and just today pushed an email encouraging everyone to make clients pay third parties directly and to ask for bigger retainers where possible, especially for potentially distressed companies.

They definitely framed it more as fear of client cash flow problems then internal, but still.

[Anonymous User]

I work at a top-end litigation firm in a big market (think Susman/KH/BSF/K&K/Quinn), and we were also told by multiple partners on multiple teams, as well as in a general call with all associates, to enter time more regularly. I know some folks have started to slow down as depositions have been delayed, new work hasn't been coming in, etc.

I don't know if it will affect the firm's long-term health, but it's clear things are slowing short-term, and partners are more obviously transparent in their worries about generating revenue. Once we make it through to the other side, I think December still won't be nearly as cheerful as some were expecting.

[Anonymous User]

I work at a top-end litigation firm in a big market (think Susman/KH/BSF/K&K/Quinn), and we were also told by multiple partners on multiple teams, as well as in a general call with all associates, to enter time more regularly. I know some folks have started to slow down as depositions have been delayed, new work hasn't been coming in, etc.

I don't know if it will affect the firm's long-term health, but it's clear things are slowing short-term, and partners are more obviously transparent in their worries about generating revenue. Once we make it through to the other side, I think December still won't be nearly as cheerful as some were expecting.

Same with my firm -- was told to make sure our time was entered daily. Never had this happen before.

Perhaps I'm being naive here, but is the goal to determine who's slow to cut, who's slow to reallocate to a different group, or to make sure we're billing clients as often as we can b/c we don't know when they're gonna stop paying? I'm not sure which way this cuts.

[jarofsoup]

Junior in an M&A group, my firm also pushed daily closing of hours in our timekeeping software when we went remote and just today pushed an email encouraging everyone to make clients pay third parties directly and to ask for bigger retainers where possible, especially for potentially distressed companies.

They definitely framed it more as fear of client cash flow problems then internal, but still.

Worried about preferences. Good planning.

[RaceJudicata]

I work at a top-end litigation firm in a big market (think Susman/KH/BSF/K&K/Quinn), and we were also told by multiple partners on multiple teams, as well as in a general call with all associates, to enter time more regularly. I know some folks have started to slow down as depositions have been delayed, new work hasn't been coming in, etc.

I don't know if it will affect the firm's long-term health, but it's clear things are slowing short-term, and partners are more obviously transparent in their worries about generating revenue. Once we make it through to the other side, I think December still won't be nearly as cheerful as some were expecting.

Same with my firm -- was told to make sure our time was entered daily. Never had this happen before.

Perhaps I'm being naive here, but is the goal to determine who's slow to cut, who's slow to reallocate to a different group, or to make sure we're billing clients as often as we can b/c we don't know when they're gonna stop paying? I'm not sure which way this cuts.

In the short term, I think it’s more about getting time in and getting bills out while clients can still pay. In the longer term, it may inform decisions about who to cut.

[Anonymous User]

Can anyone in technology transactions speak to the current activity level in that practice/its expected outlook?

Biglaw TTG mid-level in Silicon Valley here; we're busier than usual the deal support side (M&A in particular but also the VC financings). Starting to see a slowdown in the commercial and licensing work as clients start delaying product launches and corporate partnerships. The partners in the group expect our deal support work will continue to ramp up temporarily as large companies take advantage of depressed valuations, but they expect we'll get slow in a few weeks like our corporate colleagues.

[Anonymous User]

Patent prosecution here. One client needs to reduce budget, but otherwise everyone else is full speed ahead. In fact, we're overloaded supposedly.

[Anonymous User]

Patent lit / IP counseling here. Very busy with ongoing filings and projects, but I can see things slowing down in the summer as the true effect of COVID19 extending deadlines start kicking in.

The IP counseling work is definitely helping keep me busy.

[Anonymous User]

I work at a top-end litigation firm in a big market (think Susman/KH/BSF/K&K/Quinn), and we were also told by multiple partners on multiple teams, as well as in a general call with all associates, to enter time more regularly. I know some folks have started to slow down as depositions have been delayed, new work hasn't been coming in, etc.

I don't know if it will affect the firm's long-term health, but it's clear things are slowing short-term, and partners are more obviously transparent in their worries about generating revenue. Once we make it through to the other side, I think December still won't be nearly as cheerful as some were expecting.

Same with my firm -- was told to make sure our time was entered daily. Never had this happen before.

Perhaps I'm being naive here, but is the goal to determine who's slow to cut, who's slow to reallocate to a different group, or to make sure we're billing clients as often as we can b/c we don't know when they're gonna stop paying? I'm not sure which way this cuts.

In the short term, I think it’s more about getting time in and getting bills out while clients can still pay. In the longer term, it may inform decisions about who to cut.

Agree with this - they probably dont know when clients will stop paying. Instead of billing on what I believe is the ordinary monthly schedule, they might be going week by week, or just want a day-by-day record to be more precise when a client eventually cuts business off.

[Anonymous User]

Patent Prosecution and Counseling at my firm is apparently still busy if not busier than normal. Not sure if that will continue.

[Anonymous User]

Just chiming in as another data point. I’m a first year in a niche litigation practice, and this has been my busiest month since starting last summer.

[Anonymous User]

I'm also in patent prosecution/IP counseling and have not noticed a slow down. It helps that the USPTO is business as usual and has not extended deadlines. I bet new business will slow down substantially, though, if this continues much longer.

[Anonymous User]

The firms want to see the daily hourly totals for a few reasons:

1. The ones that have credit lines have those lines based on receivables. Could be the case that the banks want more timely estimates of what is coming due (and when) especially if the firms want to draw down on those lines.

2. More up-to-date view of work flow so they can do more real-time financial planning.

3. With everyone working remote, it's a mechanism to help keep tabs on folks and keep people on the ball. The firm will quickly see who isn't getting their time in per the new policy and will take action on those folks if need be.

None of this is pretty but it is reality. When times were good, less of an issue. Imagine a baseball coach letting the lineup play for a whole week without knowing who is getting hits and who isn't.

[Anonymous User]

How do you think cybersecurity/privacy practice groups will be affected by a recession/COVID-19? I'm a 2L joining a top-ranked privacy group this summer and am starting to worry about my employment prospects

[Anonymous User]

MBS person.

I got work with a Chinese PE team to do due diligence and options pricing on a pile of small biotech startups in US. It seems a bunch of Chinese companies (cursory search shows some are state enterprises) are buying seemingly every biotech startup owned by people with Chinese last names.

Some of these are so far from approval their true value is probably a tiny fraction of the money being dumped on them.

I expect this to be a short term burst though in a niche area. We pretty much scoured the country for any and all potential targets and the list is pretty short. Turns out there aren’t a lot of Chinese PhDs starting companies in US.

[Anonymous User]

How do you think cybersecurity/privacy practice groups will be affected by a recession/COVID-19? I'm a 2L joining a top-ranked privacy group this summer and am starting to worry about my employment prospects

Breaches are still going to happen, companies are still going to come under fire for their privacy practices (see Zoom), and the FTC can work remotely. My practice group has stayed busy so far.

I can see some types of work in the practice slowing (e.g., diligence work reviewing a company’s cyber and privacy policies and practices in conjunction with a merger or acquisition) but it seems like a lot of the core work will continue- and the breach side could even pick up with everyone working from home providing lots of new attack surfaces and COVID-related phishing attacks already ramping up... though it might take some companies a bit to realize they’ve been compromised.

All of that caveated by the fact that the longer this goes, the less certain anything becomes.

[Anonymous User]

How do you think cybersecurity/privacy practice groups will be affected by a recession/COVID-19? I'm a 2L joining a top-ranked privacy group this summer and am starting to worry about my employment prospects

Breaches are still going to happen, companies are still going to come under fire for their privacy practices (see Zoom), and the FTC can work remotely. My practice group has stayed busy so far.

I can see some types of work in the practice slowing (e.g., diligence work reviewing a company’s cyber and privacy policies and practices in conjunction with a merger or acquisition) but it seems like a lot of the core work will continue- and the breach side could even pick up with everyone working from home providing lots of new attack surfaces and COVID-related phishing attacks already ramping up... though it might take some companies a bit to realize they’ve been compromised.

All of that caveated by the fact that the longer this goes, the less certain anything becomes.

Thanks for responding and that's great to hear (I'm the anon who asked the question). Do you mind me asking what you particularly enjoy about your practice and what you dislike?

[Anonymous User]

OP here.

I’ve actually been quite busy but I had/have deals closing last week/this week.

Once these close I have...one deal. And some little projects here and there. But I haven’t been put on a new deal in a couple of weeks now.

[Anonymous User]

V10 attorney here. We just got an email telling us to, in the future, try and close our time on a daily basis. Normally it's weekly.

[Anonymous User]

V10 attorney here. We just got an email telling us to, in the future, try and close our time on a daily basis. Normally it's weekly.

Same. The rationale provided was that the practice groups wanted a closer to real-time analysis of work flow.

[Anonymous User]

On banking side now.

It may partly be our fault. We, partly due to having nothing better to do and partly to quantify how much we lost, have been trying to clean up books and asking for bills. It’s also partly because our advisory clients are asking for bills too as deals blow up or, for some reason they love this word, “pause.”

More broadly, I think it’s the leadership everywhere (banking, legal, business in general) feeling very uneasy about the situation and are trying to get as much clarity as possible, possibly beyond what is reasonable. That has a lot of ripple effects on firms/partners that don’t want to track hours obsessively.

[Anonymous User]

V10 attorney here. We just got an email telling us to, in the future, try and close our time on a daily basis. Normally it's weekly.

V10, partners have been making calls asking associates to close time daily.

[Anonymous User]

Public utility regulatory. I and my colleagues have been swamped. This is a busy time of year for us anyway, and COVID has added a bunch of extra work to our loads.