Rick Howell and Jennifer Bluestein were interviewed in "How Perkins Coie Went Fully Virtual in 10 Days," an article in Law.com, regarding the firm's reaction to the coronavirus pandemic and working remotely. 

“It does feel that we did it all in 10 days, but the reality is our first COVID-19 call was on Jan. 26 because we have offices in China,” Rick said in an interview. “Our continuity plan did have a pandemic aspect, so we ran scenarios of what we needed to do for remote work.”

Jennifer said that because of the early prep work, while other firms were still looking at who would be virtualized first and putting them into workable groups, Perkins Coie was already looking at moving the whole firm in a span of a few days.

“We were examining remote work because of the cost of physical space,” Rick said. “The opportunity here is that we can come back with a social fabric that is just as strong if not stronger than it was before.”

Jennifer said the firm has been encouraging things like “walking meetings” where, if possible, participants do their calls while taking a walk, and virtual coffee dates to keep people connected.

“The next thing we are working on is boundaries. Don’t sit in front of your computer working all the time,” Jennifer said.