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CLOSING ARGUMENTS AUGUST 31, 2020 ¦ 49

EDITORIAL BOARD

about its application in our pro- and input before it is finalized is
fession. most effectively accomplished
First, it is painfully obvious face-to-face around a conference
and hardly unique to the prac- At first, alarm and table.
tice of law that “working from consternation over remote
home” has very real limitations. work prevailed. But that Similarly, the senior lawyer
Distractions, both imposed and mentors the new associate by
welcomed, abound. School-age despair turned to hope, working with her; discussing a
and then to optimism, and case over lunch; critiquing her

children, also forced to work then outright giddiness. work product across the desk
from home, need support with from her. The tax lawyer and
their assignments and attention the estate planning partner each
to their boredom. The dog needs brings to bear his particular ex-
to be walked. Another load of laundry awaits. Net- pertise, working hand-in-hand to produce the
flix beckons. best possible work product for the client. Prepar-
Those conditions and others require extreme ing your partner for oral argument with a moot
discipline to achieve something approaching the court session requires the “judges” and the ad-
productive environment the solitude and quietude vocate to be in the same room. The examples are
the office provides. Yet legal work, whether draft- endless, but one conclusion is unavoidable: All of
ing a brief, researching a thorny issue, analyzing a that cannot be accomplished as well by the law-
contract, preparing for a deposition or planning a yers working remotely, as if they were 40 or 50 sole
trial strategy is a demanding intellectual exercise practitioners. The give-and-take is not the same
requiring intense, uninterrupted concentration. over the phone, on Facetime or on Zoom. Does
The domestic environment, with all its wonder not something get lost in the process?
and joy, is seldom conducive to those demands. Finally, the law firm as an institution may be af-
Our profession, of course, has the ultimate met- fected. The fabric of a firm depends in large part
ric to measure the effect on productivity of all on the interaction of its members. Most lawyers
that—the billable hour. And initial indications choose to pursue their careers in a firm because
suggest those are generally diminished post- they thrive on that interaction with their col-
COVID. Are there numerous reasons for this? leagues—both with respect to the professional and
Perhaps. But one of them is working from home. the business aspects of the practice. They pursue,
The more difficult question is whether the qual- win and serve clients by working together. They
ity, as well as the quantity, of our lawyering efforts serve together on management, recruiting and
inevitably suffer? That is much harder to measure, compensation committees. They cover court ap-
but worth considering. pearances for each other. They celebrate victories
Working remotely affects us at another, entirely together and console each other in defeat. When
different level. Lawyers tend to work collabora- they adopt the monastic model of working from
tively, and that cannot and does not happen when home, the firm’s energy and cohesiveness is lost.
they are working miles away and not down the So maybe the peculiar protocol of working from
hall from their colleagues. If lawyering is, in fact, a home will succeed with some in some professions.
demanding intellectual process, then testing one’s But we think lawyers should consider all the fore-
thinking is an essential part of it. And putting going in deciding whether and to what extent they
one’s preliminary analysis forward for critique should work remotely.
¦

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