In the early months of the novel coronavirus outbreak, Covington & Burling partner James Garland strove to maintain the appearance of an orderly law office in his basement—at least for the purposes of virtual conference calls.

Lately, he has begun to drop the charade. Slowly but surely, the “pandemonium”—the boxes, wrapping paper and “all the stuff that you would see in a basement”—has crept into the frame, he said. The family dog occasionally makes a cameo appearance. “There’s definitely a ping pong table in the background of many a conference call,” he said. “It is definitely not the finished law library look at the Garland homestead.”