As COVID-related restrictions loosen in many parts of the world, people are looking forward to gathering in person with friends, family and colleagues.
In-house counsel are also excited to see private practice lawyers in person again – whether to hear pitches for work or just to connect on important projects.
They will have to decide, however, how important these face-to-face interactions are, according to in-house counsel at Pieris Pharmaceuticals, SilcoTek and three other companies.
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After all, COVID-induced social distancing restrictions have proven that it’s possible for in-house and private practice lawyers to interact without ever meeting up in person. And some in-house counsel prefer to hear work pitches remotely because the calls save time and are more convenient than in-person meetings.
But others still want that in-person touch.
Ahmed Mousa, general counsel at clinical-stage biotech company Pieris Pharmaceuticals in Boston, says he’d rather hear pitches for critical work in person, particularly when he’s looking for new, long-term relationships with firms.
He says that when he evaluates practitioners with similar resumes, he likes to be able to differentiate between them based on how smoothly face-to-face interactions go.
Still, he says COVID has helped him realise that it is possible to effectively assess potential firms via Zoom.
In-house counsel are generally comfortable maintaining primarily remote associations with firms, but some are hesitant to embrace relationships that are entirely remote.
When they do maintain virtual connections, they want private practice lawyers to remain in regular communication with them to help nurture the relationship.
Remote requests
In-house counsel often find remote pitches particularly appealing when they don’t know their prospective private practice lawyers.
Roy Lin, senior IP counsel at software company Workday in California, says a virtual meeting can be a foot in the door for an attorney who doesn’t know him. It’s less of a burden for him to set up a phone conversation than to schedule a meeting in person.
But virtual proposals can also become burdensome when there are too many of them.
David Shofi, general counsel at biotech company Univercells Technologies in Connecticut, says that within the past year, a lot of private practice attorneys have attempted to set up virtual meetings and networking meetings with him.
He says given that he used to be a private practice attorney, he is normally the type of person who is happy to share and network with others.
“But there’s only so much time in the day, so I’m turning down plenty of people because I just don’t have the bandwidth.”
The perfect pitch
Because there is so much competition for their time, in-house lawyers need pitches from remote attorneys to stand out.
Shofi says his comfort level, the cost of services and an outside lawyer’s ability to offer something unique can drive him to pick one legal provider over another – or at least hear a pitch.
Other counsel agree that they tend to be impressed when private practice lawyers provide unique services.
Kelly Morgan, head of IP at early-stage life sciences company Arbor Biotechnologies in Massachusetts, says she appreciates attorneys who can offer something above and beyond what she can do herself.
“We’re quite creative and know the technologies pretty well, but what I’m really looking for is a higher level approach – whether it’s knowing the cases better, or just being able to add that extra level of creativity to some of the things that we’re working on.”
Attorneys add that remote meetings are often shorter than in-person ones because parties get tired after long Zoom calls, which means private practice lawyers have to ensure they still get all the information across that they normally would.
Mousa at Pieris Pharmaceuticals says that because the meetings are shorter, written proposals matter more when these conversations are virtual. He can read a firm’s pitch and then use the remote proposal as a Q&A, rather than do everything via a video call.
Counsel also want their outside lawyers to sharpen their presentation skills.
Geoffrey White, general counsel at coating services company SilcoTek in Pennsylvania, says his team recently evaluated pitches from three outside law firms. The attorneys who impressed his colleagues the most were those who were very prepared and co-ordinated their presentations well.
Others were less formal and tried to establish a rapport, but they struggled to do so via Zoom, adds White. “When you’re in Zoom and somebody is talking and someone else is not paying attention and looking away, it just distracts the people on the call.”
White says firms should practise their presentations over Zoom to figure out how to best communicate. They can also network at virtual events to obtain more familiarity with remote communication.
In-person preferences
Some attorneys say that although they don’t need in-person interactions with private practice counsel to happen regularly, they do want them to occur on occasion.
Morgan at Arbor Biotechnologies says it’s nice when she can meet up with remote counsel when they are both at the same conference or happen to be in the Boston area – where her company is based.
“It doesn’t have to be a daily, monthly or even a yearly thing. But it’s really nice to know what the people I’m working with actually look like and how they interact in person.”
Lin at Workday agrees that there is an advantage to in-person interactions for building and strengthening relationships.
“I suspect that after all travel restrictions are lifted and people adjust to whatever the new normal is, there will be increased flexibility with respect to working remotely with outside counsel, but there will always be value in that in-person relationship,” he says.
In-house attorneys’ willingness to consider remote relationships also depends on the type of work that they hire outside counsel for.
White at SilcoTek says that when his company deals with issues related to IP enforcement, he wants private practice lawyers to sit in on at least one meeting. That way, they can convey important information to those less familiar with patent litigation.
But the ability to conduct patent prosecution remotely often depends on whether counsel can maintain virtual connections with inventors – which they often can.
White says that when he was in private practice between 2008 and 2015, he did not go to most of his clients’ offices, and the majority of the work he did was entirely remote.
Some attorneys also say it’s difficult to conduct virtual brainstorming sessions with counsel.
Morgan says she finds it easier to brainstorm in person because she can use whiteboards to jot down ideas. This preference isn’t a problem for her relationships with outside counsel, however, because the business mostly does this work in house.
Constant communication
To make remote relationships work, in-house and private practice lawyers should be on the same page about how frequently they need to communicate, say counsel.
Mousa at Pieris Pharmaceuticals says outside counsel should understand how to best get in touch with in-house lawyers to provide updates and how often to communicate.
“Firms that do this very well might try to understand what the mutual preferences are so that no one feels like they’re being bothered with too many meetings or updates, and no one feels like they don’t know what’s going on.”
In-house attorneys often appreciate hearing about the newest legal developments.
Morgan at Arbor Biotechnologies says she typically doesn’t have time to keep up with case law, which means that she likes to hear about updates from her private practice lawyers.
She also wants communication about techniques that have worked well for her outside counsel or that have made legal processes go more smoothly.
Although some in-house attorneys will want more in-person interactions with outside counsel as social distancing guidelines loosen, others will take comfort in the convenience that remote work provides.
Whether their relationships are entirely or only partially remote, they will need their private practice lawyers to strengthen their presentation skills, maximise communication and articulate what they can bring to the table.
That way, in-house practitioners’ interactions with their outside counsel will be something they look forward to.
