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The coronavirus exists outside of a natural economic downturn. We don’t know yet how it will effect our business but we’re watching it very closely.
— Reed Smith global managing partner Sandy Thomas tells law.com that the rapidly spreading coronavirus is throwing a kink into Biglaw’s recession planning. And, yeah, that recession is coming. As Chase Simmons, tCEO and chairman of Polsinelli said, “Everyone always says old age does not kill an expansion or a bull market. But one of the reasons why we’re talking about there’s going to be a recession is it’s been so long. We also see our distressed practices were up this year. We had a lot of bankruptcy activity. We had a lot of loan enforcement activity. We saw that click up right at the same time we saw a ton of continued debt lending.”