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20 ¦ JANUARY 4, 2021 NEWS

‘Extraordinary Challenges’: 2020 Through
Eyes of Lawyers

By Dylan Jackson

2020 was a year of tremendous upheaval and “We do have some IT people in there, some lim-
change characterized by confusion, reckoning ited amount of people dealing with our mail and
and, perhaps, some cautious optimism. copying but we’re operating on the assumption that
For the legal industry, it’s a year perhaps best at any point in time that will be closed as well,” said
summed up by the in-the-moment words of industry Brian Donnelly, managing partner of California
leaders as they reacted to historic events, and planned firm Farella Braun + Martel.
ahead for how those events might shape the future.

‘Team Effort’
In a matter of weeks, entire law firms shifted their
What’s ‘Essential?’
After watching the pandemic spread from China operations online. So too did law schools, which
and across Europe, the novel coronavirus took hold asked their students not to return to campus af-
in the United States in the spring. In order to stem ter spring break. Law professors taught students
the tide, governors in states such as Pennsylvania over video conferencing. Bar exam schedules were
and California began instituting strict stay-at-home thrown into disarray, with some states offering the
orders, forcing businesses closed and suspending exam online or postponing it altogether.
jury trials. In some cases, the initial language was The deans of Florida’s 12 accredited law schools
unclear. Many law firms could not tell whether they asked the justices of the Florida Supreme Court
classified as an “essential” business. and the Florida Board of Bar Examiners to, among

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