CBA Record July-August 2020

Y O U N G L A W Y E R S J O U R N A L Business as Usual, or a Chance for Innovation? By Jeffrey Moskowitz, YLS Chair

CBA YOUNG LAWYERS SECTION Chair Jeffrey Moskowitz J. Moskowitz Law LLC First Vice-Chair Tracy Brammeier Clifford Law Offices, P.C. Second Vice-Chair Chastidy Burns Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender Member Service Manager Marty Gould Romanucci & Blandin LLC Public Service Manager Kenneth Matuszewski Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP Project Officer John Risvold The Collins Law Firm PC

As a beginning to our ongoing dialogue, I would like to bring up a topic we are all familiar with— commuting . I would venture to guess that almost everyone reading this article had some sort of commute before the pandemic. Accord- ing to Google, people in Chicago spent an average of 32.4 minutes commuting each way. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call it 30 minutes each way, or one hour per day. Over a 30-year career, that’s 325 full days! Almost one full year spent commuting. But now, the Covid-19 pandemic has forced us to find other ways to work, and specifically to work outside of the office. Working from anywhere allows us much greater flexibility, which in turn allows us to better utilize our time. Also, without that commute, you have more time to do the things that are important to you. Time is the most valuable asset, period. Time is so much more than money. It is witnessing the birth of your child and watching them as they grow, celebrating graduations, reading a masterpiece, travel- ling to the place your family immigrated from, getting married, closing on your new home, getting an additional degree, seeing a cherished loved one, and so much more. While I would be the first to admit that everything is different now, we should embrace the uncomfortable and use it to shape innovation in how we work. Let’s forget about the “that’s the way it’s always been done” and instead find the way it ought to be done. We are 19,000 lawyers strong and I cannot wait to collaborate with our community to create a legal system that is more accessible, more just, and more efficient.

I t is time to drop the quotations and accept that the “new normal” is normal. Change is difficult; Newton’s laws of motion do not just apply to objects – they apply to us too. We were in motion when the pandemic stopped us cold. Tragedy often breeds innovation. The Great Depression gave us the incandescent light bulb, steam turbine, transformer, radio, and refrigeration. It also gave us nylon, the first working helicopter and ballpoint pens. The Recession of 2008 gave us WhatsApp, Venmo, Groupon, Insta- gram, Uber, Pinterest, and Slack. What do GM, Burger King, Hyatt, and Microsoft have in common? They all started during recessions. This Bar year’s theme is Together We are Stronger . Now more than ever we need to work together to ensure that individually, and as a profession, we come out stronger. Our profession is based on longstanding traditions and definitely does not fall into the “move fast and break things” category. We still use carbon paper in our courthouses—need I say more? This is the time to reshape our thinking, innovate, and adapt.

Project Officer Daniel Berkowitz Office of the Illinois Attorney General Secretary/Treasurer Gavin Phelps Attorney at Law

Co-Editor in Chief YLS Journal Kruti Patel Wintersteen Law Group Co-Editor in Chief YLS Journal Alexander Passo Latimer LeVay Fyock LLC

Assistant Editor Kaitlin King Hart David Carson LLP

YLS Director Jennifer Byrne

34 July/August 2020