As a new pandemic law practice emerges over the course of several weeks, check out these tools produced by legal publishers to help lawyers get oriented.
Above the Law reports
Legal publishers have thrown their considerable editorial and technical resources at crafting new documents, pages, and toolkits to help lawyers locate everything from emergency pandemic declarations to drafting an SEC disclosure about the impact of COVID-19. Lawyers need to untangle the myriad legal issues impacting virtually every area of legal practice. We are surely witnessing the emergence of a new pandemic law practice over the course of several weeks. I have summarized the landscape of tools produced by legal publishers to help lawyers get oriented and “jump start” their practice in the “new normal” of law in a time of pandemic.
Bloomberg Law has created a special resource page In Focus: Coronavirus, which offers news, guidance documents, and trackers including the State Quarantine and Public Health Laws, Court Responses to COVID-19, and international and federal agency information regarding the pandemic. The Coronavirus Tax Watch page includes the latest news on the evolving tax landscape in response to the business and economic impacts of Coronavirus; developments across federal, state, and international jurisdictions; convenient links to IRS guidance, legislative documents; and more. Subscribers can get alerts on new tax developments, including Coronavirus policy decisions and legislation by registering for Tax Regulatory Alerts. The resources are limited to subscribers. However, Bloomberg is offering 30-day free trials.
CQ.com, the legislative and policy powerhouse, has created special pages and resources. The CQ Coronavirus Pandemic page is updated 24/7 with documents, transcripts, breaking news, and more. The headlines can be viewed by anyone but access to the documents requires a subscription. There is a page with comprehensive coverage of HR6201, the Coronavirus Bill.
The Fiscal Note Coronavirus Resource page offers a nightly COVID-19 podcast of developments and a free daily newsletter that are both available to nonsubscribers. The page is aggregating ALL policy-related content (US, EU, State, etc.) that CQ is producing on COVID 19, including webinars, transcripts, reference materials, “best practice” resources, documents, news, and podcasts.
Intelligize is a LexisNexis company which focuses on securities regulatory and enforcement practice needs offers several resources. Insights and Analysis –- Intelligize editors are closely monitoring how issuers and the SEC are responding to the crisis. The Insights and Analytics page provides an analysis of what companies are doing and how they are disclosing coronavirus issues to their shareholders and the SEC. Each article includes free access to the actual filings, and where possible, they have pulled out key data points to help issuers tackle disclosure obligations as conditions evolve. Intelligize has a research team which has developed search strategies related to COVID-19 to access the information companies need quickly. Those searches are available within the product under Sample Searches. The Coronavirus and SEC disclosure has many links that prepopulate the search criteria in the product for SEC precedent on particular reporting topics.
Law.com — According to Molly Miller, Chief Content Officer at American Lawyer Media, ALM launched a free COVID-19 news site more than two weeks ago on their Instant Insights page. The ALM page provides updates on law firm and court decisions to close or stay open, tips for working from home shared by remote lawyers, as well as global updates so readers can understand not just what is happening in the US but across offices around the world. They are covering the global pandemic at the Global Lawyer page. On March 10 they posted an article summarizing law school responses to COVID-19 with closings and online classes.
