What good did corona bring for legal fraternity?

By Dhwaja Shrivastava and Aadarsh mittal

INTRODUCTION

Lockdown due to coronavirus outbreak affected every profession. Some in a good way and some in a bad way. Lawyers were affected by lockdown in both good ways and bad ways. On one hand, the lockdown has led to the shutdown of courts and offices, which has affected the litigation lawyers in a bad way, but on the other hand, many industries such as e-commerce industry, software industry, and automobile industry have hired more lawyers than before, because the entire economy is running online during the lockdown period and companies require lawyers to handle various legal issues.

COVID-19’s influence on the practice of law is often felt most keenly within the courtroom. There are fewer cases overall, with hearings postponed, depositions canceled or rescheduled, and deadlines extended. But law and lawyers are not only about courtrooms.

Demand for lawyers in software and e-commerce industry.

Because of lockdown no company was in a situation to open their offices and call their employees, because of which they would have faced a lot of problems and would have incurred much losses. But the companies started their work online and asked their employees to work from home. But to use this system of work from home, the companies needed a proper structure of working or framework on which their company would run online. After the framework is made, the companies hire the lawyers to check whether the policies and the framework comply with laws or not.

E-commerce industries such as Amazon development centre India Private Limited, brain bees Solution Private Limited, Flipkart Internet Private Limited, Nykaa is Retail Private Limited, IndiaMART intermesh Limited, Snapdeal Private Limited Just Dial Limited, MakeMyTrip Limited, Myntra designs Private Limited, one97 Communications Limited, etc., are some of the companies which were already running online, but these companies also had offices, where people used to come daily and work. Not just companies who because of the lockdown had to start the online business but also the already established e-commerce companies had to develop the framework to work from home and had to make it in compliance with laws of India. Not just the e-commerce industry but also the software industry companies such as Tata Consultancy Services Limited, Infosys Limited, Wipro Limited, HCL Technologies Limited, Tech Mahindra Limited, Larsen and Toubro Infotech Limited, MPhasis Limited, Mind Tree Limited, Oracle Financial Services Software Limited, Quess Limited, etc. had to start working from home because of the inability of working from the offices.

Reason behind increase in demand

When the lockdown started, the companies realized that the lockdown is going to stay for quite some time, and even when it will lift up, they won’t be in the condition to suddenly open the offices and start calling the employees and workers there. So, they have to do things online. The companies had the IT professionals who prepared the platform to run a business online, but they did not have the lawyers, so, from here arose the need of lawyers. After the structure and functioning of online systems were prepared, the lawyers were hired to check whether the policies and other things were made in compliance with the laws and regulations. To check that the company is not violating employee-related legal issues, like hours and wages for which the employees are working, the safety of job or occupation of the employees, leave, and absenteeism rules.

Companies need lawyers to make sure, that they are not violating the privacy norms of employees and the customers who are visiting their websites and sharing their information with the company. More than 95% of the world considers the internet as a free trade zone but some places such as the District of Columbia fall under 5% which charges taxes for internet businesses. If a company had global reach including the areas which ask to pay the taxes, then lawyers are the one who takes care of that for the company.

The world is reshaped by the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many industries experienced a change. Once the dust settles, the legal landscape will certainly look different.

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