Seventy-one percent of in-house counsel indicated they are concerned about the liabilities their companies face when bringing employees back to work during the new coronavirus pandemic, according to the COVID-19 Return to Work Survey published by Littler Mendelson on Tuesday.

“The wave of COVID-19 litigation has begun in haste and poses a real threat to employers, most of whom are already grappling with the economic fallout from this pandemic,” Michael Lotito, shareholder and co-chairman of Littler’s workplace policy institute in San Francisco, said in the report.