When 'In-Office Culture' Meets Zoom: Helgi Walker's View From Gibson Dunn
The leader of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's administrative and regulatory team explores new challenges amid the coronavirus outbreak, and how the hallmarks of successful advocacy haven't changed.
April 28, 2020 at 03:04 PM
11 minute read
In normal times, the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher maintains what Helgi Walker calls a "strong in-office culture," with lawyers favoring in-person meetings over teleconferences.
"I think a lot of firms do a lot of working from home as a regular matter," said Walker, a Gibson Dunn partner who leads the firm's administrative law and regulatory practice group. "But we have an in-office culture because we think it's important to be there together, to just see each other and bounce ideas off of each other."
It is a culture that routinely brings former Supreme Court clerks and onetime top government officials into the same room. But even as the coronavirus outbreak has upended everyday life, ushering in widespread layoffs and office closures, Walker has found herself in distinguished company working from home in the Georgetown neighborhood of Northwest Washington. At her side, and frequently in her lap, is her tri-color papillon: Cache-Cache.
Cache-CacheThe toy French spaniel was the 36th-ranked papillon in the country at the peak of his show career, she said. On neighborhood strolls, the dog—whose name means "hide and seek" in French—has a way of upstaging his Walker.
"He's pretty famous in Georgetown. You can go on a walk with him and people will say, 'Oh, is that Cache-Cache?'" said Walker, a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas who served as a White House lawyer during the George W. Bush administration.
"Most people recognize me by my dog."
Walker recently spoke with The National Law Journal as part of an occasional series looking at how leading lawyers have navigated the many challenges raised by the coronavirus crisis. From her garden room, where she has worked at a cherry federal secretary desk inherited from her grandmother, Walker shared insights about how lawyers have begun to adapt to court arguments held over the telephone.
On Tuesday, for instance, Walker plans to question Gibson Dunn partner Orin Snyder in a moot court hearing, playing the role of judge as her colleague prepares to argue for Jerry Seinfeld in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The mock hearing will be held over Zoom, she said.
"If you think about what a moot court is supposed to be, it's a dress rehearsal. So if you're having a virtual argument, you really should have a virtual moot. That format will best help the advocate deal with the actual forum," Walker said.
The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
NLJ: These have obviously been strange, tragic times. Going into work and traveling is out the window for now. What has the adjustment been like for you?
Walker: Work-wise, appellate lawyers don't travel that much, in general. I think for the appellate lawyers, and our appellate practice group at Gibson Dunn, we've been working as usual. We have not missed a beat in our client services, and we're all really proud of that. With appellate lawyers, we're generally working on briefs, and it's only the rare occasion, relatively speaking, that we travel for an argument. It has not been that great of a shock. Obviously, we miss seeing everybody in person. We've addressed that by having Zoom meetings for our practice group in D.C. and nationally and with the associates, just really using those virtual conference apps to connect and stay connected. It's been a really great way to stay connected with folks. We make a conscious effort to really do that. At Gibson Dunn, we have a culture of being very personally close to begin with. And I think this has made us all even closer.
The thing I think, really, is most crucial to why we've been able to keep serving our clients the way we have is the fact that we have an unbelievable staff at the firm. They have been going into the office on an essential basis to keep things running—the mail room, IT support, all those things that are the lifeblood of a law firm. We have an incredibly dedicated and conscientious and brave staff that has been working so hard during this. None of the lawyers could do any of what we do without them.
What have you found to be the biggest challenges, professionally speaking, in this time?
It's the more mundane things. I wish I had my two big monitors. Writing briefs on a laptop is not ideal, but that is a really small problem in the scheme of things. We're just staying optimistic and positive and getting it done, doing what needs to be done under these circumstances and coming together, knowing that there's a lot of people who are facing much harder situations than we are across the country.
In some ways, I'm more productive because you don't have the commute time to the office. And, look, for litigators, even pre-COVID, there was no real dividing line between 9 to 5 and the rest of your day, or your in-office time and your time at home, because we are service professionals in a fast-paced litigation environment. I think being at home all the time blurs those lines, to the extent there ever were any, even more. So it's like, "Well, you might as well keep working because you're still home. There's still stuff to be done." I've tried to keep a schedule and my same routine, and that's helped.
Of course, courts have had to respond to this crisis as well. How do you feel about the transition to telephone arguments? What do you see as the challenges of that format?
I have not had a virtual argument yet, but many of my partners at the firm have. I think what we've learned from those experiences is that, once again, the clerk's offices are the real heroes. The clerk's offices have been just fantastic in terms of setting up the technology, coordinating the lawyers, coordinating the court, making sure everything works and is synchronized and ready to go. Holding test runs and so forth. The clerk offices have just been exemplary in putting these virtual arguments together.
There was a little bit of a transition period, but I think it's very smooth now. Like anything in life, there are pluses and minuses. But you don't have to travel for the arguments, you can sleep in your own bed and not worry about your flight being canceled and whether you're going to make it or not.
On the other hand, for me at least, an appellate argument is always about the substance but a lot of it is about the EQ—the emotional [intelligence] quotient. Reading body language, watching a judge's facial expression, processing all of those cues in real time to know where you want to go next, where you might want to back off. I think, obviously, we lose that important human interactive ability. But at the end of the day, I think everyone is adjusting, accommodating.
I've heard from some lawyers that the telephonic hearings open up some advantages, like being able to look at notes and not having to focus on making eye contact with a judge or panel of judges. Some have even noted the possibility of having colleagues message you in real time. Do you see any potential advantages for lawyers arguing over the phone?
I actually do not view that as an advantage, because I think any argument, whether it's in person or real time, should be a true dialogue with the court. You really have that conversation with the judges, you have to be 100% concentrating on what they are saying.
And even when I'm doing an in-person argument, I prefer not to have people pass me notes unless it's an emergency situation, because it distracts you and it interrupts your thought process. You have to be 100% engaged with those judges and listening to what they are saying. And, personally, even if I were doing a virtual argument, I wouldn't check my notes, wouldn't want to be texting with people and so on. I think that would actually detract from my effectiveness rather than help it. But that's a personal style thing. I just think, whether it's in person or virtual, you're going to give the most effective argument when you're listening and focusing 100% on what the judges are saying.
Good appellate advocacy is not just about what you say, it's also how good of a listener you are. You have to listen to the judges. As Judge [David] Sentelle famously said to a lawyer who wasn't listening to him, "We are the deciders, and I suggest you answer the questions that we are interested in." He dressed down the lawyer, but he gave incredible practical advice: Listen to the judges, answer their questions. And if you're texting or referring to your notes or thinking about something else while they were talking, you're going to miss what's important to them.
On the agency side, have you been in touch with government officials much? How do you think they've made the transition to this new normal?
I think they're doing a great job adjusting to work-from-home. I haven't had any direct communications, but our schedules for filings are on track. I have spoken to the general counsel of the FCC a few times, and we just talk on our cellphones. We filed at the Supreme Court a cert petition in the media ownership cases coming out of the Third Circuit, and the government also filed a cert petition. So, I had occasion just to check in with the FCC about those filings. Same as ever, we were just talking on cellphones.
The widespread expectation is that agencies and courts will, like so many of us, be slowed down in their work. What long-term effect do you see that having on litigation?
Right now there are fewer district court judgments coming out of the system because the district courts kind of put things on hold. But I feel like the adjustment process is pretty well concluded, and things are going to start up again. I think we may wind up with more litigation and more appeals than we had before because of pent-up demand and because of just the issues that will be presented by the government's response and other governments' responses to the pandemic.
On a lighter note, have you discovered a good show, movie or book? What have you done for diversion?
This is pretty nerdy, but I went through my bookshelves to find something to read that I hadn't read yet. I pulled out Ben Bradlee's "A Good Life." That's kind of a fun Washington read.
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