Note: Governor Phil Murphy's stay-at-home order issued because of the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly forced the melding of domestic and professional lives, often yielding some surprising results. This is part of an ongoing series. 
More time at home means chance to appreciate hometown
For Mark R. Silber, a bankruptcy attorney with a practice in Middlesex County, the governor’s stay-at-home order has meant “we’re eating, baking and putting on weight,” he said.
Silber lives in the small borough of Frenchtown in Hunterdon County, “home of the best food, baked goods, cheeses, ice creams, breads, restaurants and scenery,” he said.
Although he’s had more time to enjoy Frenchtown’s offerings, Silber said as a bankruptcy attorney there are frustrations to working from home. Part of his work involves importing credit data from the three credit reporting agencies into bankruptcy petitions.
“But the contracts of adhesion to do business with the credit reporting agencies bar remote access into our servers or computers,” he said.
“It’s difficult and frustrating to carry data on a flash drive from your office to your home and back, because if you forget, for just a second, and begin working on a computer before you’ve inserted and imported data from your flash drive, you will then have two different and irreconcilable data files for the same client—requiring professional assistance,” he said.
In addition, he can only take a certain number of files to work on from the office, so he’s unable to answer some clients’ questions.