Legal game changer

Jeffrey S Bergman explores how Covid-19 will impact the future practice of law

Jeffrey S Bergman, Osha Bergman Watanabe & Burton

I had the privilege of serving as a panelist at the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property’s online world congress in October. Our topic? Managing a law firm in the time of Covid-19. As part of the discussion, we ran a series of live polls to the audience, which began with a simple question – “Is Covid-19 a permanent game changer in the practice of law?” Approximately 90% of the audience responded with a yes. If the question were extended to the IP community at large, I would not be surprised to find that a similar percentage of people believed the same thing. We are left then, with the question, “what next?” How do we plot a path forward, and what practices need to change in order for firms to continue to succeed in the years ahead? Obviously, large firms and small firms face different structural challenges, but many of the issues that we face as practitioners are universal.