Staff at Quinn Emanuel’s New York office are working from home today after a partner tested positive for the coronavirus over the weekend.

The top 100 US law firm is the latest of several to be directly affected by confirmed or suspected cases of the virus in a scenario that is likely to become more common in the coming days as the number of cases grows.

Meanwhile, also in New York, the partner at trust and estates boutique Lewis and Garbuz, who is critically ill in hospital with the virus, has been named as Lawrence Garbuz after his wife Adina Lewis Garbuz, also a partner at the firm, paid tribute to him in a Facebook post.

Quinn Emanuel said a partner who had tested positive for the coronavirus over the weekend was resting at home with minor symptoms where he had been since 2 March "because of reported infections in his religious community in Westchester County".

“Our No. 1 concern is for the health and well-being of all staff," the firm added. "With that in mind, we are taking several steps, including implementing a work-from-home period for the New York office that will run from March 9 through March 13. We will continue to monitor the situation and keep the staff updated.” 

Garbuz, who is also from Westchester County, was hospitalised suffering from the virus on 27 February.

His wife and two children have also tested positive, although, in her Facebook post, Adina Lewis Garbuz said "no one else in my family has been sick other than a slight cough".

She paid tribute to her husband, who she described as a brilliant and caring attorney, and said she and her family were hopeful of a full recovery.

“He is a tenacious person in all aspects of his life and I know he will come out of this strong,” she said, adding she believed he was run down and therefore susceptible to the virus. 

She said: “...I ask all of us who are running on the hamster wheel of life, particularly us New Yorkers, to learn from this and take a moment to take care of yourself. We should use this as an opportunity to re-calibrate and de-stress. Nothing can be more important than our health.”

Other firms affected by a case – or a suspected case – include Clayton Utz, which temporarily closed its Sydney office last week while awaiting the results of a test undertaken by a member of staff which proved negative, and Wolf Theiss, which tested all of its employees after a partner was infected.

Meanwhile, in recent days Latham & Watkins, Linklaters and Simmons & Simmons have cancelled partner conferences while firms have also been implementing precautionary measures such as requiring employees returning from badly affected regions to self-isolate.

Further reading:

Coronavirus risk may be unprecedented, but the fundamental principles of crisis response still apply