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Law360 (April 3, 2020, 10:22 PM EDT ) A vast majority of general counsel said their legal departments were prepared for the transition to working from home during the COVID-19 outbreak, according to the results of a survey released Friday by the Association of Corporate Counsel.
More than 68% of the 277 respondents said their department was "very well prepared" for the change, with another 27% saying their department was "somewhat prepared," the ACC said. Just over 3% of respondents said their legal department was "somewhat unprepared," with 1.5% saying they were "not prepared at all."
"Overall, in-house legal departments are holding up," the group said. "The results also show that legal departments are busy contributing to the development of contingency plans, assessing and advising business leaders on risk issues, and handling the [labor and employment]-related effects of the pandemic."
Nearly 65% of respondents said they were assessing and advising business leaders on risks associated with new supplier relationships, while 63% said they were participating in contingency planning related to potential failures or gaps in the supply chain, the ACC said. Nearly half said they were renegotiating contracts with suppliers, while 41% said they were negotiating new contracts.
More than 85% of respondents said their company's legal work is staying in-house, with 54% saying they're seeing a higher volume of work and 31% reporting no major changes, the ACC said. More than 10% of respondents said they're outsourcing more legal work to law firms than they normally would, and more than 4% said they're exploring external legal options.
The survey invited 5,000 ACC members at random to participate and was open March 25-29, the ACC said.
A survey released by Morrison & Foerster LLP on Thursday found that increased workloads and shifting priorities to address urgent needs are just some of the effects that general counsel across industries are facing because of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.
More than half of the 110 in-house general counsel at global corporations who participated in the COVID-19 Business Impact Survey ranked the novel coronavirus as "severe" — at a level of 8 or higher on a 10-point scale, with 10 marking the "most severe" effect.
On average, in-house counsel said COVID-19 currently lands at a 7.2 on the scale, and over the next six months, they only expect that number to decrease by a tenth of a point, the survey found.
Looking ahead, GCs think the impact will decline but not completely go away. For example, they predicted the level to decrease to a 5.7 over the next year, and to a 4 over the next two years.
"Companies seem to be weathering the storm now, but may have to resort to more drastic measures as the crisis continues over the next six to 24 months," the survey says.
Between March 20 and March 24, legal counsel also weighed in on how the virus has affected their tasks. Almost 63% of respondents said that their current workload "has increased as an immediate result of COVID-19," according to that survey.
--Additional reporting by Michele Gorman. Editing by Aaron Pelc.
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