"Covid-19 effects is making law firms to adopt measures related to the way of working "  

Ana Catalina Monge, partner at Mmonivation, has an extensive experience in Intellectual Property Rights. In this interview she discusses how she is managing the current challenging times of Coronavirus.

Latin Counsel: What has been the economic impact for law firms as a result of COVID-19?

Ana Catalina Monge : Confronting Covid-19 has been a completely unpredictable phenomenon, has put companies to the test worldwide and law firms have not been the exception. Significant challenges have been raised regarding the need to develop policies for handling difficult situations and force majeure, changes in organizational culture and in the way of accomplishing work on a daily basis. In many cases the material impossibility of being able to efficiently meet the client´s needs due to temporary closure of public institutions, judicial offices, document processing abroad, limitation in mobilization and confinement has resulted in a decrease and slowdown in the amount of work and therefore a lower turnover, delays in the payment chain or complete inability to pay.      

Before the pandemic crisis, uncertainty is generated in the economies and this makes consumption priorities change in people and in companies, which causes also a decrease in the demand for legal services that are not absolutely essential.  

LC: How has the area of intellectual property practice and/or Sanitary Registration been affected?

ACM: Covid-19, has caused different government offices of Intellectual Property and health authorities to experience temporary closures, decrease in staff, health disabilities and teleworking of officials. Also, government offices related to processing sanitary registrations have been affected with closures, which has prevented or delayed significantly the issuance of legalizations and apostilles for documents abroad or the issuance of certificates of good manufacturing practices and free sale certificates affecting imported products that require these permits for their marketing. Many registration offices in Latin America do not have yet procedures online or digitally, so that, for significant periods of time, all trademarks, invention patents, copyrights and sanitary registration procedures´ were paralyzed. The judicial offices also decreased work or were temporarily closed, which caused a serious delay in all processes. Recently, some Intellectual Property registrations have seen the need to implement digital service and Costa Rica has been an example of this, currently distinctive signs can be requested on line; but invention patents have to wait for a later stage. 

LC: What opportunities for growth or new focus do Intellectual Property practices and/or  Sanitary Registration have during this pandemic?

ACM: The new focus for Intellectual Property practices and generally for legal firms has been to value teleworking, no longer as an exception but as a permanent possibility, which allows opportunities for physical adaptations of spaces, but at the same time investment in technological resources and digital work tools for its members. Meetings with the work team and clients which was face-to-face has been migrating to virtual form. Trainings have also shifted to virtual form by almost 100%. 
However, all these changes, economic stress and that produced by confinement, fear of contracting the virus, distancing and decrease of physical contact have had to be taken into account for psychological care and emotional wellness for the work team. 

The new growth opportunities that Intellectual Property practice firms have has been the availability to reinvent themselves in their relationship with the client, giving it a better experience and creating a closer bond that generates total reliability, satisfaction, dependence and loyalty. The possibility of restructuring its physical spaces moving away from large meeting rooms and big and elegant offices that generate very high costs and financial expenses, changing to strictly necessary spaces, allowing teleworking and innovation in technological resources that result in a more efficient management of services offered to clients; as well as; effective and immediate communication between the members of the firm. Technology is the new ally of intellectual property attorneys. The mindset that large profits could be easily distributed to a few members of the organization, while the rest worked for a lower fixed income and schedule now has changed due to an essential concept of valuing human resource and partners for the incentive of a more horizontal teamwork where everybody has the opportunity of receiving better economic income, without distinction of gender, in relation to results and their contribution. Assessment in new and innovative ways of protection of intellectual property rights (non-traditional trademarks, inventions, web page designs, music, software), in times of greater development of electronic commerce where products and services that are marketed are protected or should be protected by intellectual property. Definitely, the intellectual property firms that will have the opportunity to grow will be those who see the crisis as an opportunity to innovate. 

LC: What strategies are law firms adopting before the effects of COVID-19?

ACM: Covid-19 effects is making legal firms, including those specialized in Intellectual Property to adopt measures related to the way of working, with a growing tendency of teleworking; review and optimization of their fixed expenses to determine those that can be dispensed of; analysis of the size of the organization, size of the physical resource (offices); new ways of keeping in contact with their clients creating different communication strategies; new remuneration and incentive strategies for staff; focusing more on results, changes and improvements in digital tools, as well as the creation of contingency measures to cover staff´s tasks, in the event of disability or death by contagion of the virus.