Updated 29 July 2020
While the health and wellbeing of loved ones will be everyone's highest priority throughout the coronavirus outbreak, the implications for your businesses and organisations will be varied and huge. In-house lawyers are a vital asset to any organisation and are uniquely placed to support their employers through the extremely complex challenges that the current situation presents.
The Law Society of Scotland’s dedicated coronavirus webpage is being refreshed regularly with a wide range of information. You’ll find signposts to guidance from various partner organisations including Scottish Courts and Tribunal Services and Registers of Scotland; practice area updates; business support information; advice in connection with trainee supervision; and details of the Society’s own working arrangements. If there is any information you think may be helpful to include, please get in touch.
We'll aim to keep this page updated with links to useful resources and support, including briefing notes from our law firm sponsors and links to guidance collated by other organisations.
CMS has a dedicated page on its website, offering links to country-specific publications and webinars relating to that jurisdiction. Its Law-Now Covid-19 insights and analysis can be found here.
Pinsent Masons has produced various resources focusing on key areas an organisation should consider during the coronavirus outbreak, including:
- This guide covering contracts and supply chain, employment and immigration, facilities – health & safety obligations, public disclosure requirements, event staging and insurance obligations.
- A series of webinars.
- This podcast on how GCs can help their companies prioritise coronavirus issues and what can be learned from past crises to help make better decisions in this one.
To help the legal community cope with the challenge of COVID-19, LexisNexis has created a number of resources that are available to the entire legal community free of charge. These include legal news updates, views, guidance and Q&As. You can access the resources here.
With most of us working remotely, organisations need to think about how documents and contracts can be signed and concluded. The Society has published this electronic signatures guide, which sets out some best practice considerations for e-signing.
The Association of Corporate Counsel has created a resource library, collating latest updates from multi-national law firms on a variety of topics and with regional variations.
Crafty Counsel brings you “During The Break” - a series of remote interviews with legal professionals on how they are managing during the coronavirus crisis.
We have run series of online meetings for in-house counsel.
You'll find a summary of discussions in this blog and Journal article.
If you are interested in taking part in any future events, please contact us with your details and any areas you’d be particularly keen to discuss with your peers.
The importance of ongoing communication has rarely been so apparent. We are working towards launching an online community forum to encourage in-house solicitors to share best practice and get valuable peer-to-peer support. We’d particularly encourage sole counsel and small in-house teams to join this community once available. More details will follow soon.
While all Law Society CPD face-to-face events have been postponed, our online CPD is unaffected and will remain available. This includes a range of tailored modules for in-house lawyers.
We have launched a series of free risk-focused sessions featuring former GC, Ian Jones:
• In-house Risk: Crisis Management Reflections on Covid-19
• In-house Risk: Covid-19 and Contract Management
• In-house Risk: Managing Your Team Remotely in a Crisis
The annual conference for in-house lawyers will take place this year as a fully virtual event from 6 to 8 October.
Most individuals’ work pressures and patterns will have shifted immeasurably as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak. You may now have complex caring responsibilities to factor into your daily routine; be getting to grips with the isolation of working from home for a prolonged period; or working extremely long hours to support your employer as the situation unfolds. Please take the time to look after your own mental health and wellbeing.
LawscotWellbeing is an online resource that provides help and guidance for members and employers. We have created a dedicated section to help people through this challenging time.
LawscotWellbeing and the Law Society of Scotland's CPD team have made three modules available free of charge for our members, focused on stress management, building resilience and the health and safety factors that need to be considered when lone working.
Finally, and most importantly, please get in touch with any concerns, challenges or indeed positive stories that you’d like to share with us or the wider in-house community.
Working in-house
In-house lawyers make a critical contribution to the success of the companies and organisations that employ them. If you work in-house, we want to hear from you.
