P2P

L et us look back. It is early January 2020. Close your eyes and imagine this. Your firm is excited about an upcoming client event they are hosting: The Tenth Annual General Counsel Summit on Regulatory Change and the Forecasted Impact on the M&A Market. Your marketing events team has secured one of the hottest venues for your 4pm program – with breathtaking views of the city, which will be incredible at sunset for the after-program cocktails and buffet. Your save the date generated significant interest; printed invitations were in the mail 6 weeks before; email reminders sent twice. You have a sell-out crowd and will have a full, tightly packed room. Your venue has pushed the chairs closer together to make sure everyone has a seat. New banners, signage, and exhibit materials are staged around the room, with containers ready to pack and ship them on to a major industry conference the firm is sponsoring the following month. Your PR team has pitched and secured members of the press for a pre-event opportunity to interview your speakers, all of which have arrived and are assembled with firm leadership in the green room. Messaging has been drafted, distributed, and rehearsed since several feature pieces in legal publications have already been promised. Your photographer has joined the group and has also been briefed on who to take pictures of. They have promised to transmit a full photo roll to the marketing team immediately following the event. Meanwhile, the PowerPoint presentations are tee'd-up and hand mics are ready to be passed around. Alphabetized name tags are assembled, and iPads have been loaded with registration software – enabling the easy transmission of data to the CRM. Parting gift bags, filled with new swag items and printed collateral, are stashed behind the registration tables. Your BD and client teams are also waiting by the registration desk, to help facilitate introductions and one- to-one, face-to-face conversations with clients, ever so significant for relationship building. Your content marketing team, augmented by associates who have already written legal memos on this topic for the knowledge management team, are assembled and ready to take notes. Immediately following the event, both teams will start drafting articles and blog posts based on what they heard and the buzz in the room. These will then be compiled into a newsletter, to be distributed to clients and friends of the firm along with the photo roll. Your social media team is ready to tweet. Everything should be terrific. It was business as usual until one thing entered the room: coronavirus. Now open your eyes. The scenario described above would have been standard operating procedure at most large and mid-sized firms across the U.S. and around the world before 2020. 15 I L T A N E T . O R G "It was business as usual until one thing entered the room: coronavirus."

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