Jami Wintz McKeon, chair of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

The website for Morgan, Lewis & Bockius added a new branding element partway through the coronavirus crisis. Chair Jami Wintz McKeon says that the resources gathered under the new tagline—"Now. Normal. Next"—have garnered 500,000 hits as clients have embraced the firm's continued adherence to a "relationship" model. Unlike many peers, the firm has refused to abandon key practices such as labor and employment in pursuit of areas offering greater profitability. That wide focus, according to McKeon, has helped Morgan Lewis avoid any cuts to compensation or staffing, even as others in the Am Law 25 have had to make hard choices to preserve cash.

In fact, the firm quietly delivered raises to global business services staff in April. And on Tuesday it announced the hire in London of a four-lawyer private investment funds team formerly with Morrison & Foerster.

McKeon spoke with ALM recently about changes to her routine and those of her co-workers, as well as lessons the firm can take once conventional business life returns anew.

It's been two and a half months since we all started working from home. What lessons have you learned?

It's been a little bit longer than that because of our offices in Asia. As a whole, our firm has been out for two and a half months, but really if you look at it it's been more like four months for us.

We're probably the first firm of our size that adopted a formal remote working program for our associates. So we've had a couple of years where we've been allowing our associates to work from home two days a week with the equipment that we supply. We weren't really strangers to that, either technologically or culturally. We have realized that people can be incredibly productive when they work remotely.

When you get into a crisis, it's not a really good time to try to start having to instill cultural values in people that aren't already there. You kind of revert to what comes most comfortably and naturally to you. So if you're in an organization where collaboration, empathy, team focus, working across geographies, practices, industries is kind of second nature, you're really fortunate because you don't have to relearn that or you don't have to teach that to people. All those things enabled us to pivot really quickly to a remote working environment very effectively.

What impact do you expect this moment to have on business development when you can't do the usual things that you do to maintain contact with clients?

I think people would have said that business development would be harder in this time, when you're not seeing clients face to face and you're not attending events. But I think the reverse has really proved true for us. We very quickly and very early on developed teams of people who were focused on providing help and resources to our clients.

We've always been strongly a proponent of having much broader and deeper substantive areas of practice than a lot of firms our size. We didn't skinny down and eliminate this area or that area, or say, "We're only going to focus on the most profitable this or we're only chasing this kind of work in that." Our goal has been to be almost full service to all of our global corporate clients.

So what's happened in this period of time where our clients are all confronting a completely new world that really nobody plans for—where they have problems that are regulatory that involve expertise of our FDA team, or problems that are 'How do I get a PPP loan," or the myriad issues that employers are engaged in—we have 500 lawyers engaged in these teams, and what we're finding is we're talking to clients constantly. All day every day. It's a different kind of business development.

Are there lessons that can be taken from this mode of retaining contact when we get back to the point where you can hop on a plane and go and meet in person with clients that way?

I think people are going to be much quicker to jump on a video conference or Zoom or WebEx  just to check in with people. People are now in the habit of doing this face-to-face remotely. It's taken the place of IM and text and short phone calls or emails. People are now just in that rhythm of seeing somebody's face.

People are craving seeing each other; I think people will be excited to do that again. But they're also realizing you don't need to wait six months to have a face-to-face conversation, and you don't have to fly across the country to get somebody's attention.

I haven't heard about any cuts to compensation or personnel of the firm, and there has even been a report of raises to global services staff. Can you confirm that you haven't made any cuts? If not, how have you managed to avoid doing so?

My parents always used to say that there's a combination of good luck and good management in almost everything, and I think that's probably true. We are a thoughtfully and carefully managed firm. We pivoted to a significant remote work capability two years ago, and we've had a couple of years to test that out. We have continually looked at workforce restructuring so that we've been smart about the talent that we have and making sure that we are aligned with what our clients need. We have had a very significant business continuity and disaster recovery planning. We're fiscally responsible. These things have all put us in really good stead.

In addition, on the luck side, we have the fortuity of the Sept. 30 fiscal year, so when this all hit, we were halfway through our fiscal year, and it was a very strong fiscal year. We weren't in a position where we [needed to delay distributions], and we also don't pay out more than we make. We also don't have long term debt, we do not intend to borrow, and we have strong capital.

We have partners who look at the world very responsibly. We don't go out and buy practices, we don't over invest in areas where we don't already have strong client relationships. We've been very careful, even with our growth, to bring on really strong teams who have a high level of accessibility to our clients.

You ordinarily have a pretty peripatetic schedule. Are you enjoying having this time at home, or are you eager to get back out on the road?

You are right. I ordinarily do have a pretty peripatetic schedule. And the funny thing is, I'm home now, with my daughter and son-in-law, my brother-in-law, a son in college, a daughter in college, and my husband, all of us working. We're spread out in 50 different places, trying to work our usual schedules and covering everything around the globe. And it feels pretty peripatetic just being here. I have to say, there is a positive about not commuting, not being in a different city every day, not having to make choices about events to miss, because A, there is no travel and B, there are no events. 

What I'm finding is that the conflict that I've had for the full lives of my children—how can I be in three different places at once, and how quickly can I get home from Japan in order to make someone's lacrosse game—that's what's missing from my schedule. 

I am cooking a lot. I like to cook, and my family likes to eat. So I'm replacing some of my schedule with trying to be creative in feeding seven adults every night. I've got to tell you, I'm grateful for this time. The only thing that would be even better is if my son and daughter-in-law and their two babies with a third on the way were all living in the same house, too.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Read More

Cooley Resists Cuts as CEO Peers Into a Post-Pandemic Future

Facing Boom in #MeToo Work, Morgan Lewis Snags Sidley Employment Leader

Morgan Lewis U.K. Profits Soar Over 70% Amid London Partnership Changes