law practice management tips and tricks
Local Practice – New Normal by Larry Zimmerman
M
anaging a legal practice during the pandemic involves three broad categories of practice management worries (so far): 1. Personal Practice Preparedness – This series of issues required lawyers to react quickly to ensure firm survival. How do we protect our clients, our staff, and ourselves while continuing critical representation and meeting payroll and expenses? What remote tools and strategies do we have on hand, and what must we obtain, install and learn? 2. Supreme Court Response – The Kansas Supreme Court has been busy rolling out 29 emergency orders tallying up to nearly 100 pages, changing everything from statutes of limitation to jury trials to courthouse and remote access. This frenzied rulemaking, while necessary, has often confused clients, judges and lawyers and has given just about every Kansan something to worry about. 3. Local Rules and Application – Your firm is running (in some capacity) and clients’ needs are no longer confined to quarantine. Figuring out how 107 courts in 31 judicial districts are going to react to the pandemic and the Supreme Court’s rules is the challenge that cannot be delayed any longer.
The Good The best among the district courts recognized the disruption under way and worked immediately to reopen in some capacity. For my money, none performed better than Johnson County. There is an old proverb that counsels, “Dig the well before you’re thirsty.” Johnson County had done exactly that by exploring video conferencing access for litigants almost a decade ago. I first kicked the tires on a virtual hearing using the BlueJeans app with Judge Vano back in 2014, and it was remarkably easy to deploy and use. That advance legwork allowed Johnson County to “reopen” for video-conference hearings in April. Johnson County’s quick response to the pandemic was also aided by an early realization that the pandemic was likely to be a long-term issue. Decision-makers responded from the beginning as if they would need to develop processes, forms, and technology that would become a new normal. By contrast, several judges, clerks and court administrators in more flat-footed districts adopted a “wait and see” approach, admitting they thought the crisis would be short-lived. Those districts squandered valuable time, and many are still struggling to reopen fully to the public. Finally, Johnson County appears to have involved the public early in its plans to reopen back in April. As the district www.ksbar.org | September/October 2020 47
