The Coronavirus pandemic has affected people of all ages and stages of their lives. One huge adjustment that has had to be made by many is the move from the office to working from home in many professions. This has been the case for a large majority of lawyers, who have had to adjust to the 'new normal' way of working away from their usual office setting.
As solicitors in different areas of the law work differently, the coronavirus pandemic has affected them in various ways; some travel to clients who are unable to attend meetings in the office, whereas others attend court, but one similarity between them was that they all had to adjust to working from home.
The Rules
According to the Law Society, law firms must make every effort to enable working at home as the first option, as solicitors are not obliged to work in an unsafe environment. If they are working in the office, they must observe social distancing.
The Solicitor’s Regulation Authority (SRA) released guidance for law firms throughout the pandemic. The SRA stated that they still expected firms and solicitors to continue to meet the high standard that the public expects, meaning that they should do everything they reasonably can do to comply with their regulations and follow the SRA principles. Overall, the key principles to uphold are to serve the best interests of the client and the rule of law.
In September 2020, lawyers were made exempt from the restriction that those who test positive for Covid-19 must self-isolate, as it would not be breaking the law to leave self-isolation to ‘fulfill a legal obligation.’ This included attending court and taking part in legal proceedings, which caused confusion as to whether the rule also applied to court staff and parties involved in the case.
Family Law
Throughout the pandemic, increasing family tensions due to lockdown have caused a rise in numbers of divorces or separations, but the process is slower as it is taking longer for cases to be heard. Additionally, there has been a rise in domestic violence reports – in 2020, domestic abuse remedy order applications had risen by 24% from the same quarter in 2019. This has largely increased the workload for family solicitors.
Remote hearings have been used by the courts in an attempt to ease the backlog of cases, but this is not an easy solution; there have been many issues with the online system. Some of these issues include the process becoming slower and more draining, or the litigants feel like they cannot argue their point effectively in a virtual hearing. However, it could be argued that the parties may feel more comfortable in a virtual hearing from their homes as they are in a comfortable and familiar environment.
Coronavirus has also impacted other means to solving a dispute, such as mediation. Similarly, mediation has taken place online over the past year, which may be beneficial in cases where the parties do not feel comfortable seeing each other, as it can be done virtually at home. This may have made mediation more accessible, helping to reduce the backlog in the family courts.
Succession Law
Writing a Will during the pandemic was something that required huge adjustment, as a Will cannot be valid without being signed and witnessed, according to s.9 of the Wills Act 1937. A Will must be signed by two witnesses in the presence of the testator, which was obviously made very difficult due to social distancing rules. To accommodate this, allowances were made for Wills to be witnessed through a window, or indoors if the correct social distancing measures were used.
In addition to this, a further issue was that the testators were unable to visit offices to sign their Wills, which meant negotiation through the post, slowing down the whole process. There has been a 30% increase in the number of Wills written throughout the pandemic, most possibly due to health worries, as well as probate requests due to the number of deaths over the past year.
The Ministry of Justice announced that the Electronic Communications Act 2000 could be applied retrospectively to the beginning of the pandemic (which was January 2020) and will be in force until 2022. This legislation only applies in England and Wales and allows individuals to video-witness the execution of their Wills if they are unable to observe the usual formalities and cannot have two independent witnesses physically present. As previously stated, this will only be in force until 2022, but it would be interesting to see if firms implement this into practice for the sake of accessibility moving forward if people are unable to be physically present.
Immigration Law
The Coronavirus pandemic coinciding with the United Kingdom leaving the European Union (EU) has caused many issues for both law firms and EU citizens.
EU citizens who wish to live in the UK following Brexit now need either Pre-Settled Status or Settled Status, which has a very complex application process – one which is even more difficult for those who do not have English as an additional language. In order to obtain both Pre-Settled or Settled Status, a person must prove their residence in the UK before 31 December 2020 and apply for the status before the 30th June 2021. Being a resident in the UK before these dates have been made extremely difficult with the border closures and travel restrictions due to the pandemic, and no explicit exemptions have been made by the Home Office to accommodate these difficulties.
This has led to a huge increase in the workload for immigration lawyers who are taking on complex cases with heavy consequences for EU citizens if they are not able to obtain Pre-Settled or Settled Status. It could lead to them being unable to live in the UK legally, despite having lived here pre-Brexit. There have been more than 40 changes to the Home Office policy regarding the EU Settlement Scheme, which lawyers have had to keep up to date with. This has led to charities such as Settled stepping in alongside law firms to assist EU citizens with their applications.
It’s safe to say that the Coronavirus pandemic has had a huge effect on lawyers across all areas. Moving forward, it will be interesting to observe whether any of the new ways of working will be implemented in a lawyer’s day-to-day role due to them having a positive effect, or whether they were just necessary whilst everyone was working from home.
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