Springfield Business Journal_2021-02-22

12 · SBJ.NET FEB. 22-28, 2021 LAW Springfield Business Journal Editor Eric Olson discusses the law industry with partners Patrick Douglas of Douglas, Haun & Heidemann PC; Nate Dunville of Neale & Newman LLP; and Greggory Groves of Lowther Johnson Attorneys at Law LLC. Eric Olson: What’s one word that ex- emplifies the temperature of the law industry right now? Greggory Groves: We would use the word rising. It slowed down a little bit in 2020, but … regardless of whether the pandemic ends in 2021 or 2022 or never, we see things starting to rise. I won’t say it’s hot yet, but the temperature is rising, Nate Dunville: I would agree with Greg. There seems to be, across practice areas, an increase in demand. Some of that, especially with the litigation stuff, is related to how COVID has pushed ... a lot of those court appearances, trials, hearings back. They don’t stop com- ing. They just all get kind of lumped together. Those folks in those practice areas are extremely busy right now. There’s a lot of questions out there and a lot of uncertainty. Patrick Douglas: We have seen a lot of real estate pick up. That’s driving a lot of business: additional 1031 exchanges, contracts, leases, negotiations. For me, estate planning has also been very big. I don’t know whether that is because of some sort of an increase in our thinking about mortality with COVID or what. In the courtroom Olson: Throughout the pandemic, there were courtrooms closed and some build- up of caseloads. Is that something that’s loosening up now? Dunville: We’re lucky in southwest Mis- souri, because I think that the judges and the courts did a good job balancing the risk with some of the reality of the role that they play in the legal sys- tem and making sure, where possible, cases that needed to be heard could be heard. Obviously, it’s a difficult time to call 200 people together to panel on jury. There’s some kinds of cases that necessarily had to be pushed back. Just recently, Greene County has moved back some of the restrictions, I think we’re up to 25% capacity in court- rooms right now, and the associated courts are hearing some … nonessen- tial matters. Hopefully, as we head into the spring, we’re going to see that trend continue where the courts are going to start loosening some of the re- strictions and we can get back to busi- ness as usual while still incorporating some of the efficiencies that were developed throughout the pandemic. Groves: It’s just become unpredictable. Judge [Michael] Cordonnier and the other judges in Greene County did a great job of getting on top of this. I think Christian County did a great job of getting on top of this. And yet you have one isolated episode of somebody in the courthouse getting COVID, it sets everything back down again. Just as you see a light at the end of the tun- nel, something new develops. It’s just become unpredictable. And you’ve just got to learn to go with the flow. Olson: How frequently is that happen- ing? Groves: It just seems like there’s always one circuit in this area pushing back and saying, OK, we’re going back to phase zero, or they have different phases for an area. It means we’re probably not having any in-court hearings at all, unless something just drastic happened. We’re seeing it on a monthly to every other month basis where one of the circuits – just as things started to improve – we’ll get somebody with COVID. For instance, I’ve had one case ready to be tried in Taney County, and it’s been pushed back probably four different times, and it’s not a jury trial. Remote work Olson: What’s been the most significant impact of the pandemic on your opera- tions? Groves: We have 60-plus employees, a wide variety of individuals, and when COVID-19 first came out, we decided to allow, not require, but to allow our people to work remotely. There are some people that probably need to work remotely because of their health risks. If we have somebody who is pregnant or somebody who has more health conditions, they absolutely need to stay at home. The issue is if I’m here where one of the other at- torneys is here and needs to go down the hall to find somebody to hand them paperwork to do or whatever, it’s much more difficult. While we tried to work within that framework, we’re still working on how to become more efficient. It takes more time to pick up the phone. It takes more time to email than it does just to drop by and say, “Hey, let me give you this real quick or would you help me out on this project real quick? What do you think about this?” That has stopped with the idea of remote being increased. It’s just that juggling of how do you do remote ver- sus how do you make your operation be as efficient as possible. Dunville: It’s been a real transition trying to establish policies and procedures for managing the workflow. Of course, always having that contingency in place for an employee or an attorney [who] comes up positive and then has to … take some time away from the office, away from their practice. Just today [Feb. 9], I appeared on the docket in Christian County via video. It ran really smoothly, and it was pretty efficient. There’s some of those things that as they get incor- porated into the practice, that hope- fully we’ll be able to keep some of those efficiencies going forward and it will, in some ways, transform the way we practice law. Olson: Do you see that being one long- standing change, the virtual meetings in the courtroom? Dunville: I will candidly say that for evi- dentiary hearings and things like that, I hope not. But for more routine appear- ances and things that fit the format, I think that it’s a great way to increase efficiency and possibly move cases through the court system a little faster. It’s important that we look for the bright spots in all of this. Douglas: We have a Jackson County case pending that I think we’ll probably be able to do remotely. That’s a big deal to my client to make me travel all the way up there for something, but here I’m going to be able to do it really cost effec- tively. I’ve taken care of a probate pro- ceeding or two that I would have gone to Green County for; I didn’t need to even step outside. There is a convenience fac- tor there that’s kind of evolved. Olson: How have you guys handled client meetings? Dunville: I would always prefer to have a sit-down, face to face with people, but these days that’s not always possible. The kind of widespread acceptance of video conferencing technology has helped make this format a little bit more palatable for people. It does give you the ability to communicate better with the client than a mere phone call. Groves: Most of our individual meetings that we actually need to talk to them about sensitive issues take place face to face. What we’ve done … is modified our conference rooms. A lot of them have the plexiglass right down the middle of the conference room table. It’s just like going to a bank, where you drive through and you have that protection between you and the teller. COVID-19 litigation Olson: Something that’s resulted from COVID-19 is lawsuits against employers over claims that they’re liable for indi- viduals’ contraction of the virus. Some 14 states have passed COVID-19 lawsuit protections for companies. What’s your take on those types of suits? Have you seen them being filed in Missouri? Groves: I’m not seeing any particular LAW CHRISTINE TEMPLE Clockwise, from top left: Eric Olson, Greggory Groves, Patrick Douglas and Nate Dunville.