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.
When a lawyer in suit and tie is a surprise
John C. Uyamadu, a solo practitioner in Cedar Knolls, recently wore a suit and tie when he argued a motion for a summary judgment in Essex County via video conference. That normally wouldn’t be noteworthy, but these are not normal times. It was unusual enough to prompt the judge to say, “It’s nice to see an attorney who dressed as though he’s actually in court.”
Uyamadu, like the rest of New Jersey’s legal community during the pandemic, is working from home, where there’s no dress code. He’s been wearing business casual while at home, unless he has a court appearance.
Uyamadu said he tries to keep the experience as professional as possible, even customizing the background on his Zoom calls so that clients see a photo of a wall from his law office and his framed law license—even though he is working at the dining room table.
This illusion is largely successful, except when his two children are exuberantly exercising during their remote gym class in the living room, forcing him to seek refuge in a quieter corner of the house.
Uyamadu considers himself well positioned to work from home because he converted to a cloud-based practice two years ago, enabling him to work anywhere, “unlike other attorneys who rely on brick-and-mortar practices.”
Since the pandemic emerged, he doesn’t allow his paralegal to go to the office to pick up the mail. “She is considered high risk because of respiratory problems,” he said. “Now I go to the office once in a while to scan the mail into my cloud case management system and she can work from home.”
Life in the household is not without its stressors, however. Uyamadu’s wife is a nurse assistant at a hospital. When she finishes her shift, she changes into clean clothes, throws her uniform into a special bag and promptly launders them and showers as soon as she arrives home, before interacting with the family.