As companies plan for safely returning to the office, two new resources — including one that is free — are available to help legal professionals advise them with access to comparative federal and state legal requirements and case law.

One of these new back-to-office resources is an expansion of the COVID-19 State & Federal Compare Smart Chart, a comprehensive, free resource that Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. first launched shortly after the onset of the pandemic as a way of supporting legal and compliance professionals.

The other new resource is an expansion of the COVID-19 resources available at no extra cost to subscribers of WK’s Cheetah and Cheetah for Corporate Counsel research platforms, which will now cover noteworthy case law related to returning to work, as well as expanded analysis of trends related to returning to the office.

Back-to-Office Smart Chart

WK’s Smart Chart technology allows users to easily find and filter legal research information by parameters such as jurisdictions and topics to create custom summaries.

The expanded Smart Chart covers new back-to-office topics.

The expanded back-to-office version launched today adds a Back-to-Office main topic with subtopics such as vaccination requirements, face mask and shield requirements, social distancing and capacity limitations, restrictions by type of business, and CDC and state health departments’ policies and recommendations.

While the Smart Chart content will be the same on both the open-web version and the Cheetah subscribers’ version, subscribers get added functionality. This includes the ability to compare versions of legal resources, such as to see recent changes to a specific policy. Subscribers also have the ability to save Smart Chart searches.

WK will update the chart’s resources weekly.

WK has expanded back-to-office resources available to Cheetah subscribers.

Case Law and Trends

For subscribers to its Cheetah research platforms, WK has expanded its COVID-19 resources to include noteworthy cases, primarily labor and employment cases related to back-to-work policies. More than 25,000 lawsuits pertaining to the pandemic have already been filed, WK says.

This case law overage spans topics such as personal injury and wrongful death; employment, worker’s compensation, and wrongful termination; business interruption insurance; privacy protections; reimbursement disputes; shareholder disputes; and the travel industry.

WK is also adding new coverage of emerging trends related to the topic of returning to the office, such as coverage of state and local mask mandates or trends in litigation, as well as insights on and examples of Fortune 500 return-to-work policies.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.