[L.I. Tech Advisors, Managed Service Provider logo. Title card: "Long Island Tech - Episode 2. Robert Grey of Grey & Grey, LLP.] Anthony: This is Anthony from L.I. Tech Advisors. We're doing a entire series on a COVID-
19 series about businesses surviving the shutdown and you know going on and
[A split-screen webcam feed of Anthony and Robert, each in a remote location.] looking to the future. As far as that goes I'm now interviewing Robert Grey
from Grey & Grey Attorneys and he is the CEO and Owner of Grey & Grey. And he's
been a longtime client and friend of mine as far as, you know, we do a lot of their
IT work and everything for him but I definitely want to hear his side of you
know what his experience has been with this whole shutdown. Robert? Robert: Hi Anthony.
Anthony: Yeah so basically I'm just asking you know what- far as like going through this from the
beginning how did this affect your business? How did it affect you
personally? How did, you know, were you -how prepared were you for this shutdown? it
took everybody kind of by surprise and you know what changes you know did you
have to make any? And as far as any kind of takeaways from this experience and so
on going forward. So take it from there Robert: There's a lot to unpack there in all of
those questions. From a standpoint of protecting our staff and keeping them
safe I think we were pretty well prepared. By the middle of February we
had masks and gloves and stocks of Purell already on hand because my
general philosophy is that if it doesn't go bad buy more of it.
So we bought it, we bought the the PPE or the Personal Protective Equipment very
early. We had ordered it with the view that if a situation arose then we would
be prepared and if it didn't come to pass it cost us a little bit of money
and the materials could always be donated or used elsewhere someplace down the
road. So, you know, we were very fortunate to have planned ahead and have materials
on hand so from a PPE standpoint we were in good shape. The last day that we had
people in the office was March 13th, 2020. On that Friday - was ironically Friday the
13th - everyone went home and at that point I was thinking that we would open
for business as usual on the Monday, even though you could anticipate at that
point that eventually there was going to be some sort of shutdown. On Sunday night,
so that would be Sunday, March 15th, about dinnertime
I think it it finally landed home with us that it that there was absolutely
going to be a shutdown and people were going to be told to stay home. Well, I
figured that that was probably going to happen by Thursday of that week and I
made a decision on that Sunday night that there was no point in bringing
people back to work on Monday so that they could be potentially exposed just
to have a few days of in office operation. So it was on a Sunday night
that we told everyone not to come back to work and to stay home and that we
would try to operate remotely. At that point, we had actually already ordered a
voice-over-IP phone system but it had not been delivered so we were about a
half a step behind there. Fortunately, on the Sunday night - because we have some
some really excellent vendors - between Sunday night and Monday morning we were
able to configure our existing phone system so that anytime an extension got
called it sent an email to the staff person and they could listen to the
audio of the voicemail and then return the person's call. So, for about a week at
the beginning we were operating so with an outgoing voice message that
instructed our clients to leave a message at the relevant extension and we
put an extension list up or a company directory, and we also gave clients
emails that they could email. So, we spent the first week really fully operational
just with a very different model because instead of taking calls live as they
were coming in it was leave a message and we'll call you back which is usually
not how we do things. Uh by the end of the first week the phone system that we
had already ordered came in, so by the Monday of the second week we were
operating fully virtually. So, at that point our phones went back live where
the clients could call and it was seamless for the incoming callers you
know thanks to you know Long Island Tech Advisors... Anthony: [chuckles] Robert: ...were able to beef up our
terminal server operation and get everybody a little better bandwidth and
a little better remote capacity Oh working from home. So, I would say for the
first week of the shutdown we were probably seventy-five percent
operational, with everyone working remotely and by the second week we were
a hundred percent operational which was good because it actually was that second
week that we were working remotely that the the governor went to full-remote
operations or work-from-home across the state. Now, I mean, in terms of how our
cases have been going along, you know, we generally have three practice areas. The -
there's a workers compensation practice, a Social Security disability practice and
a personal injury practice. The workers compensation practice we're dealing with
an administrative agency which is the Workers Compensation Board and the
Workers Compensation Board actually had created their own virtual hearing
mechanism several years ago. At the time I was not enamored of the virtual
hearings because workers compensation in general has become a very dehumanizing
sort of practice for our clients and I felt that the virtual hearing program
where the person doesn't get to be in the same room with the judge and and you
know it's just a picture on a TV screen, are really accelerated that development.
But, in the pandemic environment it turned out to be a real blessing for the
clients and and all the other participants in the system because the
Workers Compensation Board has basically continued to operate virtually with
barely a hitch for over three months now. Anthony: Mm hmm Robert: Now, in terms of the substance of the
cases, you know, that's a different question and generally what drives
activity in workers compensation cases are people going to the doctor for
medical treatment and seeking to have surgery authorized or to claim injuries
or or, you know, an increase in their level of disability or what have you on
our side, and on the insurance companies' side, they get sent to so-called
independent medical examiners and the insurance companies drive activity in
the opposite direction, where they're trying to reduce people's benefits or
suspend people's benefits or finalize cases. So, with the three-month
pause order and people working remotely, you know, obviously people have not been
going to the doctor and insurance companies have not been able to get
exams. So, you don't have the volume of activity in the workers compensation
system that you had before. I would estimate that in terms of our incoming
telephone calls we're running 40 or 50
percent of normal for the last few months because the things that drive
activity have not been occurring. But, in cases where there is activity and where
hearings need to be held, all of our workers comp division attorneys have
been working at home and handling the hearings in the remote environment and
our clients have adapted to it pretty well. The Social Security practice is of
course in control of the federal government and the federal government
has not exactly acknowledged that there's a pandemic or that people need
to change their behavior so the Social Security Administration has sort of
officially been functioning as usual but in reality most of the hearings have
been postponed or have been done telephonically. So, you know, that
department has- has generally been continuing to function just in reality
not on the same basis that we- we do in normal times. You know and that's sort of
a common thread for all of our practice areas - we do injury and disability work
so what tends to be a key element in all of our cases are- are medical visits,
medical reports, medical treatment, and where people are not going to the doctor
a lot of that is not going to happen. Probably the the practice area that was
most impacted was the personal injury department because unlike the workers
comp board that- that truly continued to function and the Social Security
Administration that officially continued to function, the state court system shut
down. So, you know, my message to our personal injury department at that point
was that they should view it as an opportunity where there are no court
appearances and no real activity going on to go through files and touch base
with clients and- and, you know, with downtime you have a chance to do some of
the, you know, file review and- and workup that you don't always have time to do in
the course of normal busy practices. So, the personal injury Department was
pretty well shut down from a court appearance standpoint for
six or eight weeks. During that time, the staff and the attorneys in that
department continued to work collecting medical records and talking to clients
and preparing for when things reopened and then I think about two months in, the
state court system finally caught up to the the 21st century and- and started to
handle things with Skype - they're using Skype for Business as their platform - and
began to schedule some conferences remotely. Eventually, they permitted the
filing of motions and now they have started to begin to permit the filing of
new cases. So, activity over the last three or four weeks in the civil court
system has slowly begun to pick up. But, adapting to doing things that way is
really a- an enormous culture shift for people in the civil courts who are
used to a paper-heavy environment with appearances where you physically go to
court and sit around for many hours. I'm personally enthusiastic about the
fact that the court system has finally had to catch up, because I think in the
really in the almost immediate future it's going to create tremendous
efficiency gains, you know, both for the court and for the attorneys and
ultimately for the people who matter who were the litigants - the people who are
suing and the people who are being sued. So, I think that for that particular
practice area, the lessons that are being learned and the technology that they're
beginning to implement as a result of the pandemic is going to be a real plus.
You know, having practiced in- in personal injury myself for many years early in my
career, you know, there's nothing less valuable than a lawyer's time in court.
You go to court, sit around for three hours if they're commuting to court to
do a 15 minute conference and you can bring some materials with you but a
lot of that time in my view is wasted time.
And with the courts transitioning to more of a virtual environment you can be
in the office or working remotely you can be at home and that's you know two
and three-quarter hours of productive time and then you can do your 15-minute
conference. So, I think that they'll be ultimately as the civil court system
adapts, tremendous productivity gains for everyone which will benefit everybody
who's in the system. Anthony: Oh, that's great! I mean yeah that's a good takeaway from
this is that, you know, I- I see this in the light of the businesses were, we were
given an opportunity here to try things we never would have tried normally. Even
with the schools I'm dealing with and so on, they were forced into a situation
now. But out of this there's a lot of benefits that will come from this, you
know, and also you know even regarding, you know, how much office space a
business may need to survive and so on, can you know be quite diminished because,
I mean, working remotely - I've- I found it personally
even with my crew we've been able to do much more now and handle much more
multitasking than, you know, just going to a client. I mean, whoever told me 90% of
the work remotely - of course there are times we need to go out - but, I see this
as a boon on, you know, for many businesses. Okay. Robert: well for us it's I think a little
more complex. You know, well there are definitely advantages to having people
working remotely. You know, there's- there's- there's no commuting,
theoretically you might need less office space and have less overhead. That, to
some extent, is offset by the fact that you have to make later investments in
technology. But, you know, and also people who have childcare issues or health
issues who miss time from work yeah when they have to come to the office
can very often work full days or most of a full day as long as they're working
remotely. It gives you more ability to flex hours. There- there are certainly a
host of advantages to it. But, what I found a little surprising early on is
that a very significant percentage of our staff absolutely does not
want to work at home. You know, I- there has been a tremendous push from our- our
attorneys and our staff. I wouldn't say it's a hundred percent but it's a very
substantial percentage that they would far prefer to be working in the office
and then working at home. You know, and I think how that works out going
forward is an open question. You know, as long as
our telephone volume is running at about 50 percent of normal
we're able to operate fully with everyone working at home. You know, I
suspect that as the state reopens and as things start to return to normal, it's
clear that our- our volume is going to return closer to normal and I think it's
going to be a much greater challenge for people working at home to handle the
volume with the same degree of efficiency that they're able to do when
they're in the office. When you're in the office, you're at your desk you're tied to
your desk, you understand the phone's going to be ringing and- and- and that's
what we're here for. At home, it's- it's natural that people take you know far
more little diversions than they do when they're in the office and it- it may pose
a challenge. And there's also, I mean, at least in our organization where, you know,
we have a lot of people who have been working together for a long time.
Probably a third of our staff has been with us for more than 15 years and
another third between five and 15 years. People miss working with one another. And
it really is not satisfactory to most of our
people to replace real interpersonal contact with telephone and Zoom or other
electronic communication. And then you have a client side of it, which is
clients like to know that their attorney is a real person and they want to come
to an office and, you know, clients take a message away from when they
come to an office and it's a- you know, a large well-appointed office with
professional-looking people and they it provides them with a comfort level that
they're in good hands as opposed to if you went to you know an office that
looks like a seedy motel, right? So, you know, and- and, you know, the next - we have a
number of hurdles coming up. We've generally been operating for three
months now with 95% of our people working virtually and two people working
physically in the office to keep the operations running. It's- and those two
people have been me and one very longtime staff person. Because what
enables the other people to work virtually is that you have a couple of
people who were working physically - the mail comes, the checks come, everything
has to be scanned, there are papers that have to be printed so people are
remotely printing to the office, and then we take it off the printers and it's a-
for us, it's a full-time job with the scale of operation. For two people, it's-
it's- it's become a running joke that, you know, every day, you know, I come in at
9:00 and I leave at 6:00 and Maria comes in at 10:00 and leaves at 5:00 and we
work all day and accomplish nothing. But somehow, we're busy from the moment we
arrive until the moment we leave. Just keeping things running, so we've started
to transition now. We've brought back one more person in the Social Security
Department to start to Richter in that department's work to a person in that
department. Next we'll probably
bring back somebody on a rotational basis in the personal injury department,
so that they can internally handle their own mail and their own printing. Probably
will bring somebody back to help with the bookkeeping, and, you know, we're going
to have to sort of feel our way. In terms of bringing more people back into the
office, you know, my standard on that is safety comes first. There's obviously
some balance between safety and remaining operational. But, as long as we
can remain close to 100% operational and virtually a hundred percent of the
people or as many people as possible working remotely that's where we're
setting the bar. You know, if volume increases and it's just not physically
possible to remain operational with everyone working remotely then we'll
have to start crossing the bridges of who do we bring back? And how many people
do we bring back? And what steps do we take to make sure that everybody's safe?
I have put together a reopening committee with representation from all
the different job titles in the departments, and I gave some foundational
documents that I had gotten from other sources and I asked them to start
thinking through those issues. Not with a view towards that we're gonna be fully
reopening in a week or two weeks or maybe not even in three months, but the
longer the lead time we have to think about these issues and try to get
materials in place, the better off we'll be. Anthony: mm hmm Robert: You know, I also think that it's
almost the inverse of where we were at the beginning. At the beginning, we were
able to get supplies because we were very early. I think at this stage of the
game, the longer you can put off getting supplies the better off you'll be.
Because there's going to be a run on things like Plexiglas and- and UV
lights and so on and so forth early in the process. Eventually the supply chain -
so then there's going to be a scarcity - eventually the supply chain
will catch up. So, I think if we reopen later rather than earlier we're likely
to actually have greater ability to get the supplies that we... Anthony: Absolutely Robert:...recently and also
hopefully what will happen is effective treatments and maybe vaccines will be
developed which will reduce the risk of the virus. Yeah, right now, I think the- the
danger is that- that with reopening and, you know, other things that are that are
going on - better weather - people are going to start treating this like college kids
at spring break. Everyone was confined for three months,
the virus numbers right now, New York look really good. I think people are
going to feel safe and, you know, unfortunately my concern is that we're
going to see a significant spike in the numbers in two, three, four weeks from now.
And don't know what's going to happen when the fall comes and- and, you know,
colds and flu season gets layered on top of that. You know, from the news today
you're already seeing that there were spiking numbers in states that reopened
and where there were large gatherings of people Memorial Day weekend, so we're
being very cautious about this. Anthony: Okay. Alright. Well, I think we conclude here.
I really appreciate your time and all the information you shared with us. Again,
it's Robert Grey from Grey & Grey attorneys, and I really appreciate the, you know, you
getting together with us and sharing your experience. Robert: Happy to be here thank you. Anthony: Okay. [L.I. Tech Advisors, Managed Service Provider logo. www.litechadvisors.com. (631) 212-8377. info@litechadvisors.com.]