Companies were embracing the use of alternative communications platforms like Slack long before COVID-19, but the onset of the pandemic has made those tools even more central to day-to-day operations. Hanzo’s “Internal Investigations in the Age of Collaboration and Remote Work” panel held Thursday delved into implications for corporate investigations and examined how corporate legal departments were adapting.

The good news is that the process of launching an investigation doesn’t appear to have changed much from a process standpoint, however, Slack and other collaboration platforms have introduced significantly more surface area to cover. Whereas random groupings of employees may have once been using Slack of their own accord, some organizations are now formalizing the practice organization-wide.