Lawyers Weekly Interview - Examining Personal Injury Issues in Firms Post-Pandemic

SBL founders Kerri Shaw & Gemma Bunner were recently interviewed by Lawyers Weekly to discuss the key issues to consider for employers in the legal sector.

The full article by Jerome Doraisamy can be found here.

We are sharing the article here as the content highlights the key issues both employers and employees need to consider as be navigate a return to work in the post-COVID 19 world:-

COVID-19 has up-ended the traditional working environment, meaning that – once the pandemic has passed – legal employers will have to seriously look at how best to protect employees.

Given how much the day-to-day working environment has shifted for lawyers across the board, in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic, legal employers will – to varying degrees – be scrambling to ensure that their workplace measures are in accordance with their employment obligations.

Speaking to Lawyers Weekly Shaw & Bunner Legal principals Kerri Shaw and Gemma Bunner said that, in addition to this overarching consideration, they are currently seeing concerns regarding issues of confidentiality in the legal sector whilst working from home, managing clients’ expectations and also the potential decline in mental wellbeing with employees no longer having the benefits of a collegiate working environment.

Moreover, the pair said, there are also “relevant concerns where working from home is not an option and a workplace remains operating with employees working in office”.

“When it is essential to see clients face-to-face then employers must ensure that the health and safety of their employees and clients [are] not put at risk of contracting COVID-19. Employers have a duty to consult with workers and provide information and training,” they said.

“They must maintain a safe work environment by practicing physical distancing, cleaning regularly and considering restricting the layout of the workplace and limiting the number of people in the workplace at any given time.”

In a post-pandemic world – in which remote working and WFH arrangements will be more mainstream than ever, Ms Shaw and Ms Bunner said that employers’ duty of care will mean taking reasonable steps to ensure their safety in any environment.

“This includes having a clear working from home policy that gives clear instructions on how to perform their duties safely and to ensure that an employee’s home area/workspace meets workplace health and safety requirements. Where appropriate, a risk assessment should be completed and an employer may need to inspect the employee’s home environment,” they advised.

“We would also recommend that employers check in with their workers’ compensation insurer to update them on any revised working arrangement so that the policy is adequate to meet any potential claims from an employee.

“A clear working from home policy is essential and this should provide detail as to when and how employees should report potential health and safety issues.

“Good communication between employers and employees is also key and regular check-ins to ensure that employees are able to perform their duties safely and are coping with the new regime. For those workplaces that remain open in a post-pandemic world, it is important to implement the safety practices as referred to earlier.”

Moreover, Ms Shaw and Ms Bunner said – as lawyers who work in the personal injury space – they feel that firms must be rethinking the way they operate physical files.

“Personal injury work is traditionally paper-heavy and transferring large files to the home environment creates difficulties,” they outlined.

“We also need to embrace videoconferencing as personal injury clients often come to us when they are in a vulnerable state and benefit from a face-to-face conference. Where possible, we need to accommodate that. We also need to be mindful of taking calls uninterrupted and ensure that client confidentiality remains paramount.

“Ideally, if practitioners are working from home, they should attempt to designate a work area that family members are unable to enter and ensure set conference times are clear of distractions.”

Finally, Ms Shaw and Ms Bunner said that firms must be setting aside time to properly understand and appreciate technology, and its place in legal practice moving forward.

“The legal industry was already headed down a path of technology disruption however the COVID-19 pandemic has brought that to a head.  Boutique firms have the advantage of being smaller, leaner and able to [adapt] to change quickly,” they said.