The last two years have been unprecedented for most legal skills faculty. Having to flip the legal writing classroom and teach in online Zoom rooms became the norm. Gone were the days of seeing colleagues in the hallway, faculty lounge, or stopping by someone’s office. It became harder to stay connected and build relationships. But to a select few, such as myself, the asynchronous and synchronous online teaching modality is where we began.

The 2020-2021 academic year felt like an eon. It was an eeeeeeeeoooooooonnnnnn—a tiny word, suspended, stretched into an unrecognizable form.

That eon ran its course in a flash. Time flew even as it stood still, with every moment predictably offering novel and surprising challenges. Somehow, the spring semester abruptly ended when we were simultaneously hitting our stride and suffering burnout. A seventy-five-minute class on Zoom often felt equivalent to twenty minutes in a physical classroom. 

When I left private practice to start teaching legal writing in the fall of 2019, I never thought much about how to take attendance. But teaching during a pandemic has been full of disruptions and unexpected surprises, and here I was, scrambling for a head-count system that would work during a school year unlike any other. Some days, class was fully remote. Other days, it was hybrid, with half the class attending in person, and half remaining remote. No telling how long that would hold either, as change seemed like one of the only constants.