The 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is attacking the health, financial welfare, social order and political stability of nations across the globe. At a time when millions are fighting to survive illness, financial hardship, political upheaval, and other existential threats, it is difficult to look beyond the moment. The scourge of COVID-19 will pass. When, at what cost, and what its lasting impact will be are open questions.

One thing is certain: when the immediate crisis of the pandemic abates, life will be different.  Tom Friedman’s recent New York Times op-ed  suggests the coronavirus will create a new historical divide:  before-Corona (BC) and after-Corona (AC). Translation: Corona is a seismic event.

How will COVID-19 change the legal industry and what will it look like AC? Short answer: the coronavirus will turbocharge legal industry transformation. It will propel law into the digital age and reshape its landscape. The entire legal ecosystem will be affected—consumers, providers, the Academy, and the judicial system.

Digital transformation has been a C-Suite priority for years, but the legal industry has scarcely taken notice and is unprepared. The coronavirus will change that. It will produce a swift, comprehensive, top-to-bottom  reimagination of the legal sector. Here is a brief outline of what things might look like on the other side.

Remote Work and Distance Learning Are The Tip Of The Iceberg

The coronavirus has turbocharged law’s move to a virtual workforce and distance learning. The well-fortified walls of resistance have been breached with breathtaking speed. Office and school closures, social distancing, and stay-in-place measures have been met with widespread industry deployment of underutilized technological tools, an urgency to alter the status quo, a must-do, adaptive mindset, and rapid adjustment to new operating procedures. Legal culture has not, of course, had time to process this, but it has demonstrated that it can, when pushed, alter entrenched methods of educating and delivering services.

Remote work is nothing new to business.  A Report  by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) found that 69% of organizations allowed employees to work remotely in 2019— three times more than the telecommuting workforce at the turn of the Millennium. There are several reasons why business is turning to more remote workforces: greater job satisfaction, more efficient use of company resources, and enhanced productivity. These and other factors explain why The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report cited changing working environments and flexible working arrangements as the #1 business market trend. Law has tenaciously clung to traditional ways of doing things. Even after the global financial crisis, the law firms adjusted at the margins—furloughs, reduced rack rates, and internal cost-cutting measures. This time things will be different; the changes will be broad, deep, and enduring.

The potential of distance learning has been realized by online educational companies like Coursera and Kahn Academy. They provide accessible, affordable, flexible, quality content to millions of online learners. These online companies also demonstrate that education is a process, not a place. It is a lifelong process in a world where competency and agility are as prized as diplomas and pedigree.

Online courses have long been resisted by law schools, Some have online offerings, but they are  comparably priced to the traditional classroom model. Law school tuition has continued to rise, triggering a tsunami of student debt. Law schools have responded by appeasing tenured faculty, hiring more staff, engaging in a building boom, and hiring more fundraisers. This cycle will come to a halt in the aftermath of COVID-19.

There will be a pruning of the law school herd. Consolidation, tuition reduction, flipped classrooms, and online programs will become mainstream, especially among non-elite schools. Alternatives to the three-year juris doctor (JD) program will proliferate as prospective legal professionals evaluate the time, cost, and value of a JD in a market where fewer professionals will engage in the practice of law and more will focus on the business of delivering legal services. A law degree will be a “nice to have” but not necessarily a “must have” for many aspiring lawyers.

Law schools will confront competition from new sources. Tech-enabled companies will create legal training and learning centers that offer competencies including, but not limited to, legal expertise. Other professional schools, notably business and computer science, will offer legal courses that complement their core curriculum and prepare grads for newly-created legal jobs.  Legal programs—and education more broadly—will transition from diploma mills to learning centers for life with a strong community component. Students will not be burdened by exorbitant debt, enabling them to pursue jobs for passion, not to maximize economic return to pay-off loans.

Law Firms And In-House Departments Will Be Transformed

Competition for talent and clients/customers will intensify in the post-Corona world. Legal consumers will engage providers that deliver solutions to business challenges. Elite legal expertise will be at a premium, but consumers, not lawyers, will determine what it is, when it is required, and how its results are measured. The competition for “bread and butter” and commoditized work will be more intense than ever. The traditional law firm partnership model, already showing stress cracks, will have exposed fissures in the AC world. Differentiation will become even more critical for firms to survive and so too will the need to collaborate with others in the supply chain. Talent platforms will accelerate this change process. There will be more collaboration across firms, corporate departments, and other providers, and the artificial divides separating them will disappear.

Corporate legal departments, legal swans of the last decade, will be affected, too. They can no longer rely on “insourcing” as a solution to C-Suite pressure to do more with less. In-house teams must determine “who does what?” and look beyond traditional insource/outsource paradigms. They will be challenged to reimagine the art of the possible and to restructure how legal delivery can meet enterprise expectations.

 “Going digital” was once an illusory concept for most General Counsel and their senior management teams. In the AC world, it will be well understood. The legal function will no longer be divided into law firms, corporate departments, and other supply chain providers. It will operate as a seamless, integrated team drawn from multiple sources. Its remit is to proactively defend the enterprise while collaborating with business counterparts to drive impactful enterprise value. The designation of a firm, in-house, or other provider resource will not matter—expertise, collaboration, delivery, results, and customer satisfaction will.

Consumers will benefit from the rapid transformation of the post-Corona industry. Corporate buyers will have access to platforms enabling them to identify needed talent quickly, reliably, and across geographies and skillsets. They will have secure, on-demand access to data-driven information to make faster, better-informed hiring and business decisions. Corporate risk tolerance,  business objectives, and other matter/client/industry data will be baked into this process. Legal risk will be one of a constellation of factors, not the centerpiece it has been traditionally.

The coronavirus will accelerate the growth, prestige, and market share of a handful of an elite cadre of enterprise legal service providers that includes UnitedLex and the Big Four. Their global footprint, scale, technology, process and delivery capability, capital, and broad, deep multidisciplinary expertise are well-suited to AC consumer demand for scalable, “safe hands” to solve large, complex, multidisciplinary, multi-jurisdictional challenges.

Axiom, a pioneer in reimagining legal delivery and culture, will fare well. Axiom’s well-established brand, depth and breadth of highly-vetted, experienced attorneys will be great assets in the AC landscape. So too will the company’s flexible, just-in time model, culture, and capacity to scale on the supply and demand sides draw talent and attract buyers. Axiom’s dual focus on satisfying its workforce and customers, coupled with its data-driven process and technology platform, are additional ingredients for future success.

FisherBroyles, an early new-model law firm and the only “virtual” one to scale, is another provider well-positioned for success in the AC world. The firm’s flat organizational structure provides flexibility to its lawyers, allowing them to set their own billing rates, organize project staffing with colleagues, and work when and as they wish. FisherBroyles attorneys collaborate seamlessly with colleagues as well as others in the supply chain. The breadth and depth of the firm’s legal expertise, coupled with its agile, flexible model and collegial culture, set it apart.  The firm’s model aligns the interests of its lawyers with the firm and the firm with its clients. This has been a winning formula that will be even more successful in a transformed legal landscape.

Courts Will Go Digital

My friend and colleague, Richard Susskind, addresses judicial modernization thoughtfully and thoroughly in his new book, Online Courts and the Future of Justice. His analysis is all the more prescient and timely since the volume’s publication predated the COVID-19 pandemic. Susskind questions whether courts are a service or a place and makes a forceful case that technology can help resolve the global access to justice crisis. He advocates for “online judging,” where human judges—not artificial intelligence—decide cases, though not in the physical courtroom via oral argument. He also supports “extended courts,” a self-help, virtual form of the traditional court function whereby the parties are provided a range of tools to promote understanding of rights and obligations. Susskind acknowledges that not all disputes are amenable to online judging or extended courts, but his re-imagination of everyday litigation is both realizable and an important step in combatting access to justice. 

The inaccessibility, cost, formality, abstruse rules, and protracted processes of courts in their present guise is misaligned with life in the digital age. The urgency of modernization is unprecedented. Courts around the world have ground to a halt when demand for accessible, efficient, and widespread administration of justice is desperately needed.

Conclusion

Friedman’s before-Corona and after-Corona line of demarcation is already taking shape in the legal industry. In a matter of weeks, legal education and service delivery have been transformed. The pandemic is putting tremendous pressure on courts to do the same.

The old guard will cling to the hope these are temporary changes. They will point to the recession precipitated by the 2008 global economic crisis and suggest the current one will take a similar course. This time  is different. Technology and new delivery models are far more advanced than they were in 2008. Consumers have a different mindset and a greater urgency to solve a growing list of complex challenges. The potential of technology and its ability to support new models, processes, and paradigms is already on display. The genie is out of law’s bottle, and it will not return.

The contours of the AC legal world are taking shape. There are challenges and opportunities. Those who upskill and adopt a learning-for-life mindset will find opportunity. Others that stand pat, hoping that things will soon return to the BC world, will be redundant. COVID-19 will produce a thinning of the herd and a reimagined legal industry.

Embrace the challenge.

Original article posted here. 

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor declared today that the Ohio Supreme Court will offer $4 million in grants from its budget to help local courts use technology to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

“It is my hope that by pushing out this funding on an emergency basis we can assist the local courts with a quick implementation of video conferencing for arraignments and other conferencing needs,” Chief Justice O’Connor said.

The decision was made on behalf of local courts across the state that lack the equipment and resources to facilitate the Chief Justice’s desire of continual operation by the courts while observing health guidelines on minimizing social interactions.

The announcement was made during the daily news briefing on the crisis held by Gov. Mike DeWine and broadcast and live-streamed statewide.

“This is an unprecedented time, a time during which the judiciary of Ohio as well as the bar, and state and local leaders must come together to guarantee the vital, continued operation of the state’s judicial system and the public’s access to its courts,” the Chief Justice said.

The new grants are tied to the current emergency and are in addition to the annual round of tech grants that the Chief Justice launched five years ago. Those grants have totaled more than $17 million and have covered a wide range of modern upgrades around the state.

Ohio has 353 autonomous courts, and the Chief Justice has been in contact with judges and judiciary stakeholders about keeping courts active while reducing potential public health risks.

“Total closure of the courts and the clerks of court offices presents an access-to-justice issue,” she told the news conference. “Measures can be taken to ensure access to justice, while safeguarding the health of employees. By limiting but not eliminating access, the courts can be closed to the public for non-essential purposes.

“I've asked judges to prioritize their workload, to reduce the need for jury pools and the level of public traffic in courthouses. I encourage them to maximize technology and modify their orders to reduce the need for face-to-face interaction. I urge them to consider lowering bonds and using summonses instead of arrests to help minimize jail populations.”

Courts and law enforcement also could minimize jail populations by lowering bonds and assessing inmates that may be vulnerable for infection.

“I urge judges to use their discretion to release people held in jail and release incarcerated individuals who are in a high-risk category for being infected with the virus,” Chief Justice O’Connor said.

Like the local courts, staff at the Supreme Court continues to work as it accepts case filings and provides support to judges, court personnel, and attorneys.

Understanding the evolution of the pandemic, the Chief Justice says she’ll remain connected throughout the state to address any alterations that may come, saying: “We are working together in this ever-changing environment, and we are pleased to continue to do so.”

Click here to read original article. 

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor of the Supreme Court of Ohio will address the state on court issues Thursday during Gov. Mike DeWine’s news conference on the coronavirus crisis.

The operation of the state’s court system and the public’s access to its courts, in ways that are consistent with the state’s public health strategy, will be the topic of the Chief Justice’s remarks.

The daily news conference on the crisis is scheduled to begin at its usual time, 2 p.m. EDT. Live coverage will be available on the Court’s website at www.supremecourtofohio.gov and on the Ohio Channel at www.ohiochannel.org.

Click here to view the original article. 

Merey is a Domestic Relations attorney based in Taft's Columbus office. She represents clients in legal matters relating to divorce, custody, premarital agreements and all aspects of litigation.

Prior to joining Taft, Merey was an associate at a Columbus-based law firm and served as assistant legal counsel at Abercrombie & Fitch. 

Merey obtained her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School and her bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, from Indiana University. She is an active member of the Ohio Women's Bar Association.

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Criminal justice reform has drawn increasing public attention across the country in recent years. The award-winning film “Just Mercy,” released last December in the midst of these vocal discussions about reforms, depicts the fight one lawyer has been making for decades to address these problems.

A Columbus screening of the film, followed by a panel discussion, drew not only dozens of lawyers but also two Ohio Supreme Court justices. The panel at Friday’s event, organized by the Ohio State Bar Association, featured Justices Patrick F. Fischer and Michael P. Donnelly.

The film chronicles lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s work in the early years of the Equal Justice Initiative, which he founded, and focuses on Walter McMillian, one of Stevenson’s early cases. McMillian was wrongfully convicted of murder in Alabama, where he spent six years on death row – 15 months of those before his trial.

“The movie represents the real truth of the system,” Justice Donnelly said. “There’s an imbalance of power in the criminal justice system.

“It should be required viewing for every single judge who takes the bench in Ohio.”

Justice Fischer mentioned his personal experience with the criminal justice system as a child. In the eighth grade, he had to testify at a trial for his brother, who was found not guilty.

“I think the system generally works. Do things go wrong? Absolutely. Do we need to stop [the wrongs]? Yes,” Justice Fischer said.

He stressed the need for quality legal representation.

“When there are good lawyers on each side of a case, you get good results,” he said. “Whether rich or poor, we need to make sure that everyone has access to good lawyers.”

The panelists discussed the Supreme Court’s task force on wrongful convictions recently announced by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor. The Task Force on Conviction Integrity and Postconviction Review will analyze the post-conviction review processes in Ohio and other states, and review the work of innocence commissions and conviction integrity units of other states, among other duties.

“I hope the Ohio Supreme Court does what needs to be done,” said panelist Ian Friedman, a Cleveland criminal defense lawyer.

Friedman also complimented Ohio’s progress.

“Not a lot of states are making the advances that Ohio is.”

Jennifer Grant, who is an assistant city prosecutor in Columbus, noted that support for changes in the criminal justice system come from all corners, including judges, public defenders and defense counsel, and prosecutors.

“Justice reform isn’t about what side you’re on,” Grant said. “It’s about justice.”

Click here for the original article. 

The bar passage rate for first-time test-takers has increased by nearly 5 percentage points, according to data released Monday by the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

First-time test-takers who graduate from an ABA-accredited law school in 2019 have an aggregate pass rate of 79.64%, compared to 74.83% for 2018 first-time test-takers, according to a news release. Individual pass rates by school can be found here.

According to the press release, 89.5% of test-takers who graduated in 2017 and had until 2019 to pass the exam did so, compared to 88.64% of 2016 grads. Overall, 97.1% of all 2017 graduates sat for a bar exam within two years of graduation, and the schools gathered bar passage information from 98.6% of 2017 graduates.

In May 2019, the council of the legal ed section revised Standard 316 to require that at least 75% of a law school’s graduates who sat for a bar exam must pass within two years of graduation, rather than the previous five-year requirement. The schools’ bar passage data released Monday is not a “compliance report” for the standard, wrote Barry Currier, the section’s managing director of accreditation and legal education, in the ABA news release.

“The public reports do provide important consumer information for students considering whether and where to attend law school and for others with an interest in legal education,” Currier stated.

According to a June 2019 managing director’s guidance memo, the council, during its February 2020 meeting in Tampa, Florida, plans to review the data and send letters to law schools with class of 2017 pass rates below 75%. Those schools will have an opportunity to respond. At a subsequent meeting, the council, most likely during its May meeting in Chicago, will review the responses.

“Absent a data reporting error, the Council will likely conclude that under Rule 11(a)(4) a school with a two-year ultimate pass rate below 75% is out of compliance with the standard,” the memo states.

Noncompliance with the standard requires public notice, and schools will have two years to demonstrate that they have returned to compliance, according to the memo. 

Click here to view the original article. 

The Ohio Supreme Court and the state’s official access to justice entity are asking the more than 44,000 lawyers in the state to assist thousands of fellow Ohioans in need of legal aid.

In a partnership with the Ohio Access to Justice Foundation (OAJF), the Supreme Court sent a voluntary pro bono reporting survey to all of the state’s attorneys. The inquiry is a way for OAJF to collect data on how many people are volunteering, where, and what types of law in which they’re consulting.

“The need is great. In fact, it’s almost overwhelming. One in five Ohioans qualify for civil legal aid services,” Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor said in a statement to the state’s lawyers.

To get the most accurate data in order maximize outreach, both organizations urge all lawyers, including the ones who prefer to donate their services anonymously, and the ones who have yet to volunteer, to fill out the survey.

“It’s the only way we can gauge statewide how far we’ve come, and how far we need to go,” Chief Justice O’Connor said. “It will also help ensure that all areas of our state are being covered.”

Since OAJF began the survey in 2009, the foundation has documented responses in an effort to identify which areas are most in need, and what disciplines are in greatest demand. OAJF pro bono director Sophia Chang said people in rural communities, and those with transportation obstacles, experience the greatest disconnect from legal services. When armed with more information, the foundation is able to better coordinate with legal aid groups across the state, and unite lawyers with people seeking help.

“Generally speaking, what we have found is attorneys in Ohio care about pro bono, and they do pro bono, and year by year it increases,” Chang said.

Statistics from 2018 indicate lawyers assisted in more than a dozen disciplines. They ranged from foundational needs, such as housing and employment, to personal ones, like family law and establishing wills. Given the wide range of specializations, the technological advancements to consult via mobile apps, and the resources provided by legal aids, doing pro bono work is easier, and the ways to contribute are more plentiful.

“A lot of attorneys think of pro bono as full representation, and it takes hours and hours of their time, but that’s not true, because there are also other opportunities, like brief advice clinics where it’s only one or two hours a month,” Chang said.

Recent initiatives have included campaigns for record sealing and driver’s license reinstatement. Both are examples of how the legal profession can solve problems that have plagued people for years in as little as one day. The benefits in these matters aren’t exclusive to a client or an assisting attorney, but the entire practice of law.

“It lends itself to an overall confidence in our legal system that the system is fair and just, when people are represented by counsel. It’s our obligation as attorneys to help encourage that perception of our system,” said Gina Palmer, the Ohio Supreme Court’s attorney services director.

The survey can be taken by individual attorneys, or a single firm representative on behalf of all of a firm’s attorneys, and should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. The survey will be available only through March 9, 2020.

Click here to view the original article. 

The Ohio Supreme Court teamed up with the Ohio State Bar Association (OSBA) for a second time to address the hot-button issue of sexual harassment in the work place.

The free seminar brought together a record 750 lawyers and judges from across the state, including those who watched in person and others online, via live streaming across the state.

“Not Another Sexual Harassment Training: Empowering Attorneys and Judges to Create a Culture of Civility and Respect” featured national speaker Fran Sepler, who was commissioned by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, to develop programs offered nationwide.

“Every attorney and judge in the state of Ohio has a professional obligation to conduct themselves with civility and to show respect for their colleagues,” Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor said. “Our goal for this education is to foster the development of workplace and professional environments where harassment will not occur.”

Instead of hitting the traditional teachings of reducing employer liability, the conference focused on how behavior deemed disrespectful and uncivil can create a hostile work environment if it goes unchecked.

“This training is a part of a continuing effort by the OSBA and the high court to ensure that the Ohio legal profession is well-educated on a topic that is at the forefront of the national conversation,” said OSBA President Eleana Drakatos.

“Attorneys are on the front lines when it comes to this topic as they advise their clients on how to create healthy working environments,” she said. 

Original article posted here. 

A year after Ohio Supreme Court Justice Melody Stewart was sworn in as the first African-American woman elected to the state’s high court, she added another historic milestone.

Justice Stewart became the third justice to be the featured speaker for the Court’s annual Black History Month event.

“I was a little surprised that I was asked to do it so soon. It was certainly an honor to do it, and follow all the speakers who have been the keynote for this in the past,” Justice Stewart said.

Joining former Justices Yvette McGee Brown and the late Robert Duncan, Justice Stewart addressed nearly 200 people at the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center, half the crowd was comprised of students from local high schools. On top of educating attendees about her work, she enlightened the crowd about how her professional passion pairs with her personal one. 

“When I author or write an opinion, it can’t just read right, it has to sound right, and that’s very similar to me composing music,” Justice Stewart said.

The program titled, “The Harmony of Music and the Law,” illustrated how certain components in one realm parallel the other. 

“They’re not something you really think they have a lot in common, but she was able to connect them, which was interesting,” said Lilian Ducy, a student at Columbus Metro Early College High School.

As Justice Stewart explained during her presentation, both disciplines allow for creativity, but neither “can be completely willy-nilly,” as each is rooted in structure. When looking at statutes – her example was jaywalking in the Ohio Revised Code – each provision begins the same way with qualifiers that progress and build off each other to list all of the scenarios of a violation.

That composition of law, she described, mirrors how music is produced. Most songs use a motif, which is a simple set of notes that permeate through the song. It’s a method that was utilized in classical works, like Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, and in pop songs, such as Usher’s “Yeah.”

Along with technical similarities in the two practices, there are sociological factors in both.

“Every single person in this room has some set of implicit biases. It’s just who we are,” said Justice Stewart.

Whether it’s conscious or subconscious, everyone has certain influences in their lives that form stereotypes or expectations based upon personal experience and environment, she said. In music it can lead to misnomers by associating genres or styles to certain groups, be it age, race, or gender.

In the law, consequences of implicit bias can be much more detrimental. A judge or juror could allow any number of things – such as appearance or an allegation – influence them into an unjust verdict based upon the facts of a case.

“You need to recognize when it gets to that, so you can stop yourself from making a biased decision,” said Jared Waldman, another Metro Early College High School student.

With a name like Melody, perhaps Justice Stewart was destined to be a lifelong student of the performing arts. Through her experiences, she’s seen music’s developmental and therapeutic impact, not only for practicing the craft, but anyone who simply enjoys it.

“If it instilled in them that they can learn more about music, or play a musical instrument, and still do whatever they want to do in life, then all of this will have been worthwhile,” Justice Stewart said.

Original article posted here. 

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor announced today the selection of John S. VanNorman as the Court’s next chief legal counsel.

“John’s experience as a member of the Court’s legal department for the past 14 years positions him to be our chief legal counsel. He has the  knowledge, experience, and record of success at the Court that allowed the justices to unanimously agree on promoting John to this position,” Chief Justice O’Connor said. “He’s a dedicated public servant, and we are grateful for his service.”

In his new role, VanNorman will manage the Office of Chief Legal Counsel, which oversees the legal, legislative, and policy affairs functions within the state’s highest court.  He will serve on the Court’s administrative leadership team.  He will also provide legal counsel and research support to the justices, Court staff, and implement policy initiatives concerning the administrative operation of the Court.

VanNorman joined the Court in 2006 and has served in various capacities during his tenure, including deputy chief legal counsel and, for the past four months, interim chief legal counsel.

“As an attorney, it has been a privilege to work for the Supreme Court of Ohio these past 14 years,” VanNorman said. “I am deeply honored and humbled by the opportunity to continue my service to the Supreme Court, as well as the Ohio citizenry, as chief legal counsel.”

Prior to working at the Court, VanNorman served as an attorney for the Ohio General Assembly’s Legislative Service Commission. His work with the commission included legal research and legislative drafting, as well as staffing various House and Senate committees.

A native of Ashland, Kentucky, VanNorman received his undergraduate degree from Anderson University and his law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law. 

He lives in Dublin with his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters.

Original article posted here.