President’s Column by Renée N.G. Stackhouse
COVID-19 ONE YEAR LATER: SEQUELAE & SILVER LININGS
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n February 2020, there was this whispering of a sickness spreading. It seemed distant, surreal, and, if I’m being honest, like something that would never be an issue here or for me or anyone I knew. In March 2020, that bubble of naivete was sufficiently popped and replaced with dread as we started to see the coronavirus tangibly tearing through the United States, and we were asked to stay home for 14 days to flatten the curve. I couldn’t possibly do that, I thought at the time. I mean two weeks!! It has now been 328 days and counting. In the March/April 2020 issue of San Diego Lawyer magazine, then-President Johanna Schiavoni wrote that the greatest source of collective anxiety around coronavirus was the unknown. She poignantly asked, “How many will get sick? How many will die? ... Can we rise to the challenge as a local and global community to protect one another and our most vulnerable?” A year later we can answer those questions: We know that 28,992,598 people have tested positive in the United States so far.1 We know that 526,213 of those have died. 2 And we know that many have risen to the challenge to protect our communities and our vulnerable, including our courts, which shut down to stop the spread and then worked tirelessly to figure out how to safely reopen; our law schools, which went virtual as fast as possible; and our colleagues, many of whom had to make significant changes to their practices and/or put themselves at risk to continue their work.
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SAN DIEGO LAWYER
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March/April 2021
During the last year, the business of law has suffered. According to data analyzed by legal software Clio, the number of legal matters opened each week declined almost 40% by April 2020 before starting to creep back toward baseline in August.3 The survey results showed that the potential client attitude was either they felt their legal issue could wait until after the pandemic or they just didn’t think lawyers were open and available to help. 4 With declining cases, so too were there decreased positions and promotions. According to a Law360 survey, 43% of partners took a pay cut because of COVID-19. 5 A survey by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), based in Washington, D.C., found that over 80% of firms had not established start dates for first-year associates or deferred them to January 2021, and some firms rescinded employment offers to 2020 graduates. 6 It should come as no surprise that “less privileged young attorneys will bear a disproportionate brunt of the impact.” 7 Those entering the profession were not the only demographic affected by the pandemic. Litigators and firms handling contingency fee cases were impacted as courts and administrative offices closed and there was no pressure to settle cases without trial dates. Solos and small firms have been going out of business or taking a huge hit. Clients aren’t paying legal bills because they can’t, having lost their jobs or facing steep health care bills. In-house