May Edition 2020

9 Confronted with such financial and existential challenges, have clients’ expectations and demands changed since the pandemic began? Yigal Arnon’s Weintraub points out: “There is a feeling that demands from clients are more urgent than ever, and, in some cases, even life and death matters. This is particularly true for many of our start-up clients which are struggling to survive and are looking for urgent assistance to stay afloat and avoidmass layoffs. With respect to clients which are still actively involved in fundraising there is a sense of extreme urgency because there is always a feeling that the investor is minutes away from dropping out of the deal. ” In terms of the importance of soft skills and communication, there is a great chance to reconnect and drive strong relationships and engagement, and this has not gone unnoticed. Tadmor pointed out: "From a technology and service point of view we were there from the get-go, so there really was no issue. Interestingly, as a firm we function very well in the virtual space and we continue to provide the same level of service, after all, there are no business trips, no vacations, no going out to meetings, so availability is at its peak.” As Phillips says: “Not being able to meet with clients has also made our work more difficult in some cases - although many of our clients are from outside of Israel and so we are used to working with them on a non-face to face basis. Current experience with remote meetings and communications may make this one of the largest legacies of the crisis - perhaps meetings will be the exception rather than the norm post-Corona.” Communication has been the focus too at EBN. “We doubled the number of internal meetings of our teams (being held online of course…) – at the levels of management, partners and lawyers, to make sure there is a free flow of information and exchange of ideas, and that our firm immediately reacts to the current fast moving environment,” said Toledano . Clients expectations and demands