How was the Lockdown for You? The 9 members of the Parchment Committee give an insight into their experiences of the Pandemic and recent lockdown
Killian Morris, Partner – AMOSS Solicitors I can remember vividly the moment that Leo Varadkar stood on those steps in Washington, we were in the office boardroom planning for how we might operate over the coming weeks with all the speculation around potential disruption. With the sudden closure of schools we had to uickly establish which of our sta had childcare issues and ensure they had the correct equipment and connectivity to work from home the next day. Up to that moment, we had been thinking about measures we might calmly implement over a longer period all that went out the window! Not knowing what would happen next I had sourced an office desk and chair for the spare room at home on adverts.ie - culminating one very wet night in my having to run across the Luas track near Capel Street to an illegally parked car with an office chair under my arm! Screens and keyboards were set up at home but by the time the full lockdown was announced on 27 March, my new printer scanner hadn’t arrived. I wondered that night whether the delivery would be allowed through the following day as an essential 6 the Parchment
service. Of course, as it happened, couriers and delivery drivers became regular callers to my door over the lockdown period to deliver a variety of important items namely documents, company seals, printer toner, badly needed hair clippers and essential wine or the rst few weeks of lockdown, we got used to Zoom and Team calls and occasional trips into the office to collect original documents where re uired. Much of our work involves acting for developers and investors in social housing projects which saw a boost in activity during the health crisis. Getting signatures organised and agreeing protocols for the exchange and delivery of leases became a tricky but ultimately surmountable problem. Internally, as a business we had to take stock to ensure that aged debt and uncollected outlays were chased down and also we had to each make nancial projections for the coming months. All this, while doing very badly at being a ‘home school’ teacher… The pandemic has shown us new ways of doing things but I think we all crave normal face to face contact and working collaboratively within the office environment. Hopefully we will be back to that soon and, while it will inevitably be di erent, we can hope that the lessons we have learnt over the past few months will stand to us all.