A Message From the Editor It’s safe to say that Morgan Stanley’s chief legal officer touched a nerve last week. In calling for all of the outside counsel they employ to work exclusively from the office, the CLO’s statement was called “arrogant” and “tone deaf,” among other descriptors. There’s a lot to be said about the nature of the in-house/outside counsel relationship, whether the client is always right, and even about cybersecurity in the remote age. But my knee-jerk reaction to this is more of a simple: Remote working became something worth fighting for really quickly, huh? Thinking back just two years ago, LTN was still writing articles about whether law firms were willing to shift to the cloud, the pros and cons of remote reviewing, and the security risks that come with mobile devices. And to be fair, none of those issues have really gone away. But over the past 18 months, the tenor of the conversation has shifted from a yes/no proposition, to a definitive statement that this is happening and now the details need to be ironed out. The shift has become so definitive, in fact, that it seems even the suggestion of not working remotely catches people’s attention. That’s how I truly know the genie is out of the bottle with remote work, and it’s not going back in, no matter what any major financial institution says. – Zach Warren, editor-in-chief, Legaltech News |