SCR 20:1.4 addresses the lawyer’s duty to communicate with the client.
11 The current pandemic or any other disaster or emergency makes regular contact with clients more important than ever. The client needs to know how to contact the lawyer just as the lawyer must know how to contact the clients.
For example, if telephone calls and emails are routed through the firm’s communication system, the lawyers must regularly access office voicemail, email and any other methods of client communication regularly used in the office to ensure no communications are missed. If firm lawyers work remotely, they must have a system in place to regularly handle mail – both timely sending and obtaining that which is delivered to the firm office.
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At our 2020 Annual Ethics for In-House Counsel Seminar in December, we addressed Legal Ethics in the Time of COVID-19. That presentation was through the framework of ABA Formal Ethics Opinion 482, Ethical Obligations Related to Disasters (Sept. 19, 2018). Although ABA Formal Opinion 482 focuses on natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, tornados and the like, it is also applicable to COVID-19 as a slow-moving disaster. One of the issues raised in ABA Formal Opinion 482 is the Unauthorized Practice of Law (”UPL”).
Shortly thereafter, on December 16, 2020, the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued Formal Opinion 495, which addresses the reality of lawyers working remotely during the pandemic. ABA Formal Opinion 495 provides common sense direction to lawyers, who have either chosen or been forced to carry on remotely their practice of law of the jurisdiction(s) in which they are