Webinars, once a bore to be avoided, now draw thousands

When the Brain Injury Association of California had to cancel its April legal conference, chairperson Erica Chavez sought ways to keep attorneys engaged in its absence.

Since then, she has been helping put on legal webinars, which have been occurring on a regular basis with rising viewership and participation.

Previously, getting eyeballs on a webinar was like pulling teeth. Just prior to the pandemic, Chavez said her organization's webinars were attracting on average a couple hundred viewers. Now they are averaging 1,000 views a day and rising.

"Right now is the perfect storm for educational webinars. All of the travel seminars are canceled and everybody is stuck at home," said Beverly Hills attorney Gary A. Dordick, who has been touring the webinar circuit giving advice on personal injury cases. "These legal webinars are now going on every day. It is changing the legal landscape," he said.

Legal webinars are exploding in popularity as conventions, panels and other attorney events are being put on hold this year. They have given attorneys accustomed to socializing and networking something to do aside from virtual mediations and depositions.

"The quality of education has gotten better. And it is not cost prohibitive anymore," said Chavez. "We are planning on continuing them. You can't pay me to sit in a room with 500 people right now."

Most webinars are free and offer MCLE credits. They also allow a wide strata of litigators to come together seamlessly from all over the country before a huge audience.

Earlier this month, a TBI Med Legal webinar on traumatic brain injury that Dordick participated in received 4,380 viewers, the largest yet, according to Chavez. And this Friday at 11 a.m. attorneys expect an even bigger turnout featuring a who's who of national plaintiffs' attorneys moderated by Dordick, including Brian Panish and Deborah Chang of Panish, Shea & Boyle LLP, Nick Rowley of Carpenter, Zuckerman & Rowley, and longtime Texas trial lawyer Mark Lanier. The events regularly feature doctors teaching lawyers about medicine.

"We've had great panels but never got the top six people all on one panel," said Chavez.

Chavez, who said TBI Med Legal has spent thousands of dollars creating an email database, said her organization receives hundreds of emails a week asking for their webinar invitations.

"It really makes you realize we don't have to travel as much as we do as lawyers," said Chang of Panish, Shea & Boyle, who on Wednesday participated on a panel about cross examination in traumatic brain injury cases.

"This may well be the wave of the future and there may not be large conventions this year or perhaps even next year," said Dordick. "On these webinars we can put together the greatest lawyers in the country and bring them into peoples' living rooms at virtually no inconvenience to the speakers or audience."

Previously, panels hosted by the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, perhaps the biggest legal convention in the country, featured at most an audience of a few hundred people. The Los Angeles group, as well as the Consumer Attorneys of California and Trial Guides, also have their own webinars.

"Right now they are a means to stay informed, have a sense of community, and be educated," said Robert T. Simon of the Simon Law Group, in an email.

Simon has a Justice Team podcast as well as a live weekly talk show that mixes legal knowledge with a relaxed, fun atmosphere in which attorneys share a drink. Those tuning in can learn about everything from starting a firm to specialized trial tips. The talk show is more of a question and answer format with direct access to leaders from various trial bars as well as the Judicial Council. Questions can be sent to media@justiceteam.com.

"I think attorneys are doing this as a way to give back," said Chang.

The webinars are an important outlet during a time like this, she said, explaining, "Some of my colleagues are getting very down and depressed. We've never been through anything like this."

But beware of the Zoom bomb, in which a surprise, usually uninvited guest disrupts a Zoom conference.