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.

Panelist Stacey Blaustein, counsel at IBM, indicated that the company rolled out the mandatory use of Slack in January 2020 as a way to supplement email. "Over the last few months that we've all been working remotely there's been a huge increase in these collaborative environments and the way people communicate and collaborate has shown tremendous expansion across the enterprise," Blaustein said.