Supporting Employers Through the Pandemic

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented disruption and challenges that came with it, we worked diligently to create platforms and communication streams to answer client and internal questions relating to COVID-19 as quickly and efficiently as possible. We swiftly assembled a COVID-19 taskforce, bringing together subject matter experts across all disciplines. We also partnered with our International Group to help multinational clients with operations in Central and South America, Canada, Mexico, and throughout Europe and the Asia Pacific. We created a COVID-19 Resource Center to house our record-shattering volume of thought leadership and resources—from legal updates to webinars, to guides, to checklists—to provide clients with cutting-edge solutions to short-term responses and long-term strategies for dealing with the effects of the pandemic on their businesses. A sampling of our initiatives and resources:

• Business Impact Law & Order Tracker: To help clients stay up to date on passed legislative updates, local guidance, and executive orders, we created a user-friendly tracker to distill the information quickly for use in counseling clients. Created in the earliest days of the pandemic, the tracker is updated and distributed daily.
• Return to Work Template Policies & Forms Repository: We created a living repository containing links to template Return-To-Work policies and forms. It includes robust plans and guides on topics such as Confirmed COVID-19 Work Action Plans; Staffing Firm Business Continuity Plans; and Return to Work Guidance on Privacy, Cyber, and Information Governance as well as template policies and forms including template Letters to Furloughed Employees on various topics, Social Distancing Policies, and Protocols and Employer Safety Checklist Forms.
• Remote Workforces Practice Group: For some companies, the shift to remote workforces could become permanent; for others, it involves planning in the short and long term. Companies with multinational workforces are dealing with further complexity given the differences in laws impacting remote workforces on a country by country basis. To help clients address the challenges resulting from the shift to remote work, we formalized our expertise into a cross-disciplinary, global Remote Workforces practice to provide full-service solutions. The group helps clients consider strategies for remote working, and whether it works for their company in the short and longer term and the legal implications across the world.
• Beyond COVID-19 Resource Center: As shelter-in-place orders began to be lifted, businesses entered uncharted territory. COVID-19 permanently altered supply chains, workforce planning, service models, and growth strategies. Our COVID-19 Resource Center provides insights and analysis regarding what's next as the US economy reopens. It is sponsored by our COVID-19 Task Force, a cross-disciplinary team of attorneys working together to advise clients on short-term responses and long-term strategies for dealing with the effects of the pandemic on their businesses.
• Liability Shield Maps: State lawmakers continue to search for ways to pave the path for their economies to reopen amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest trend in that effort: equipping businesses with a shield against liability for claims related to the contraction of COVID-19. Our attorneys are actively tracking COVID-19 liability shields across the country
• LE Litigation Tracking Dashboard: In an effort to better inform our clients of the litigation trends and issues stemming from COVID-19, we formed a team of attorneys to track and analyze COVID-19-related labor & employment filings, so we are able to identify risks for our clients now and in the near future. The team developed an interactive dashboard tracking COVID-19 litigation by geography, issue, and industry.
• Unemployment Estimator: We developed in-house an “Unemployment Estimator” tool that translated the partial unemployment and related qualification calculations of all 50 states in a way that permitted employers to conduct partial-pay furloughs and retain part-time assistance from employees, without disqualifying employees from receipt of federal unemployment stimulus payments.