COVID-19, A message to our customers

To all customers, guests and clients, we are writing to share our responses and plans for the novel coronavirus in the United States and Georgia.

As part of our preparedness to deal with this novel coronavirus (COVID-19), we have been, and will continue to be focused on the following day to day precautionary steps (see below) to keep the virus from being in any of our 24 O’Kelley & Sorohan offices throughout the metro Atlanta area, and our Florida office as well. And we are also focused on our business continuity plan which addresses scenarios which might arise in various forms in our retail type closing operations.

This latter planning for the outward facing parts of our retail closing business has required in depth preparation including multiple “what ifs” over these last few weeks, in how to handle remote operations when there is a physical presence needed for operations as well. Over 80% of our employees have already worked remotely from home or other offices within our 24 locations, and all of our offices are connected to each other with the same computer system so anyone in any office, or home, can work on their particular files without having to have them in paper form. And for years our staff from any location can actually print to any office; we are ready for connectivity, that is the easy part. The challenge is what happens if one of the offices must close if there is a case of COVID-19 found from a visitor or within from an employee. That potential event is what requires planning and changes to staffing and closings and that will mean the office that has to set aside will need to be closed and operations shifted to other locations. We are unique in that O’Kelley & Sorohan has a large number of fully functioning closing offices throughout the metro area. We feel confident in being ready for any situation that might arise in this new virus environment.

Our top priority is to protect the health and safety of our team, customers, guests and clients. First, we have had no employee, guest, customer or client diagnosed with COVID-19. To continue this safe environment, we have mandated and are mandating all employees follow CDC recommended hand washing protocols etc. and we are mandating all employees who have any symptoms consistent with any version of the flu (or any potential sickness), to stay home from work until they feel well or have been tested if they show symptoms consistent with COVID-19.

More specifically as to precautionary steps:

We will be handing out new pens for each closing, and encourage you to take them with you.
Closing tables and chairs will be sanitized between each closing, as well and any shared public space multiple times a day. And at the end of the day.
Staff will be required to wash hands after dealing with any IDs and documentation entering the office.
Staff will continue to be encouraged to follow social distancing protocols to keep greater distance between individuals.
All employees are instructed to stay home when they are feeling sick or to go home early should they begin to feel ill after they arrive at work.
If you or your clients have any concerning symptoms, or have been out of the country in the past 14 days, please notify your precloser ASAP. We are happy to draft a power of attorney free of charge to encourage anyone with concerns to stay home
We encourage everyone to stop on the way into the office and wash their hands, and avoid touching their face.
We are providing hand sanitizer for customers to use in the event hand-washing is unavailable or if desired for each closing.

Secondly, as discussed above, the challenge of a business disruption plan is to think of what will happen if an office is required to close for a period of time, and how busy is that office as to closing volume. Just having
employees work from home is not the entire answer because there will need to be clean environments and healthy lawyers and staff present for closings.

Because we are connected and have remote capabilities, our employees can work from home and print out the papers needed for closings that occur in clean offices. If one of our offices is closed, we will shift the closings to the next closest office or one that is convenient to all of the parties in the transaction, based on communications with all of the parties. Our offices are designed to be about 20 minutes apart in drive time so there will be only a slight disruption in timing for closings. While we do not expect this event to occur, we have planned for this business disruption so that it will be slight for all parties involved.

There has been some talk of remote closings in the industry and that is possible, but it would require having a closing attorney available for the closing, at the site, along with a witness. There would have to be people in attendance at the remote site and we instead encourage anyone who is sick or cannot attend the regular closing in our office, to use a Power of Attorney, which we will provide without charge for it’s preparation. That Power of Attorney designee will be able to close at any office that is convenient to them, even if the other party to the transaction is signing at another office.

We will continue to update our planning as the need arises. We are prepared to put any of our business disruption plans into action if the need arises, but we are very hopeful that none of the more serious events will occur. Each day we will evaluate and revise our plan if there is a need for it, based on new information or input from our team, customers, guests and clients.

We thank you all for everything you do and for your vigilance in this time of heightened awareness of a novel coronavirus. Please call any of our attorneys with questions as to any “what if” that you may have.

-O’Kelley & Sorohan