OTLA Trial Lawyer Winter 2021

8 Trial Lawyer • Winter 2021 By Meredith Holley OTLA Guardian “I got a little worried they weren’t a real law firm,” she said. “I was just used to how your firm did everything when we got started and all of it hap- pened so smoothly. But, now I feel more okay with everything, and I believe the attorney is a real person.” She laughed. My firm has provided online services since I created it, and I referred this client to a long-established firm that has his- torically provided in-person services. The firm had an initial call with her, mailed her a fee agreement and other documents with a SASE, and then a couple of weeks later met with her again by phone after they had requested re- cords. The client was pretty freaked out. Her experience was significantly different, and she said it felt much less safe than when she started work with our firm. It’s possible, when you read my client’s comment, you assumed the opposite was true — that the client felt safer with an in-person firm, and I had referred her to an online firm. If you assumed that, I get it. But, we need to change that assump- tion if we are going to create access to justice, especially for our most trauma- tized clients. I think many of us used to think of work-from-home and alternative sched- ules as luxuries. At the same time, many people who have experienced the most severe injuries see work-from-home and alternative schedules as survival. Our clients, whether they came to us because of severe injuries or not, are facing trauma on a daily basis that is unprece- dented in our lifetimes. It has become crucial, in order to ensure access to jus- tice, that we create online-accessible, safe practices for our clients who have always Meredith Holley and may always need them. I see many law firms creating online practices as though they are placeholders for in-person services, potentially, in part, because we believe clients inherently feel safer with in-person services. We think of online services as inferior, and we are waiting for the pandemic to end so that we can “get back to normal.” For many clients, though, this is not the case. In- person requirements have always been a barrier to justice for them, and the pandemic has in some ways leveled the playing field. Haben Girma says, “Disability drives innovation.” Girma, if you don’t know, is the first deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School. She is also Black and a first-generation daughter of immigrants. While I don’t mean to com- pare what traditional law firms have faced in the pandemic to Girma’s story of sometimes life-threatening lack of access to resources, she’s at least worth listening to when we’re facing a challenge. Dis- ability drives innovation. When we see our clients facing a bar- rier to justice, or when we see our clients facing a barrier to us, it is time for in- novation. Make it better than in-person “How far did she make it this time?” I remember asking my assistant when I worked at an in-person law firm, on the top floor of a fancy building with suited Setting Up A Home Office and Virtual Practice