Trustees Message
We Are All Practicing Law Down the Rabbit Hole By Merle F. Wilberding Esq. First Vice President Coolidge Wall Co., LPA
T
he COVID-19 pandemic has really changed the practice of law, as perhaps most of us already know. In so many ways we have all tumbled down that Rabbit Hole Alice described in her Adventures in Wonderland. We have all been put at risk by the coronavirus that is sweeping our country and, for that matter, the world. The health risks are very real, even as their effect on any one person may be mild or deadly and in any event are unpredictable. While seniors and those with specific health conditions are generally considered most at risk, it has become clear that it is an equal opportunity virus, and no one is immune, at least not until a valid vaccine has been developed. As we adjust to this new surreal wonderland we realize that we must now practice law in a different way than we did before the coronavirus. With scattered exceptions, our daily routines have been disrupted by the new pandemic rules and guidelines. Our judges have done a great job in adjusting court schedules and procedures to enable our justice system to continue to serve our community. In the general practice, we have adapted our routines, even as our lunch and dinner meetings have evaporated. (I, for one, now typically eat lunch at my desk in the office.) For the most part our face-to-face meetings have disappeared, replaced by conference calls, and various visual meetings enabled by Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx and other technologies. In our office, we must wear masks at all times except when we are working at our own desks. Clients and visitors are directed to the segregated conference rooms in a separate part of our office where we can engage in a meeting that is marked by masks and social distancing. So 4
Dayton Bar Briefs October 2020
far, this has been working pretty well. And yet, this brave new world has taken away so much of the social engagement and casual conversations that have always been a part of our lives. As Alice lamented when she went down the Rabbit Hole, “what is the use of a book without pictures or conversation,” just as we ask ourselves “What’s the use of laptops at home if we cannot kibbitz about the Reds around the water cooler?” That’s a challenge we now face. We need to restore that part of our humanity to our lives. My observations also apply to our Dayton Bar Association. We at the DBA have had to make our own adjustments in order to continue to serve our members. I am sure that those adjustments are felt by everyone as the DBA and its members continue to adjust their lives to Alice’s Wonderland. At the same time, I am encouraged that out of the darkness of the pandemic has come opportunity. Whether it is for us as individual lawyers or for us as a bar association, the COVID pandemic has given us new opportunities for imagination and innovation. In some ways the restrictions of travel and social distancing have opened the doors for new ways of serving our members. I believe the Dayton Bar Association will be able to make everyone’s membership more interesting, more valuable, and most important, more meaningful. The restrictions on travel have made it easier to attract great speakers and great visitors, and those things can now be done more conveniently and can be done on a smaller budget. Let me give you a personal example. My son James is an ancient philosophy professor at a large university in Berlin, Germany. He has been instructed to stay home at least through the end of the calendar year, and to conduct his classes online.
While having to teach online forced him to change his curriculum and presentation, it did open up new opportunities. As he told me, “Dad, now I can now bring the best and the brightest from around the world into my classroom through the Zoom technology.” In that same way our bar association will now be able to bring in some of the best and brightest into our programs and CLE sessions, and do it in a way that is convenient to our members and can be within our budget constraints. Our section meetings may be more convenient on the Zoom platform, and that means more people will be able to participate and make their membership more valuable and more meaningful.
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