Posted on August 31, 2020 by
Have you ever been in an online meeting where you wanted to have a side conversation with some, but not all, of the meeting participants?
Most law firms have designed their brick and mortar offices to provide small break out rooms adjacent to large conference rooms. This can make large meetings and negotiating sessions far more productive, by enabling confidential side-bar discussions where settlement trial balloons get floated or lawyers and clients speak privately about particular points in a merger or public offering.
Now the virtual world is catching up. Microsoft has announced that a 4th quarter release will provide breakout rooms as a standard feature available for Teams’ meetings. Each breakout room will be a fully functioning Teams’ meeting instance; everyone in the main meeting room will be aware of the existence of the breakout rooms but the contents of each breakout room will be visible only to those with requisite permission.
Teams’ users will be able to switch between the main conference room and up to 3 breakout rooms for which they have privileges with the click of a button. However, each user can only actively participate in one meeting at a time. Despite only being active in one room at a time, users will be shown as present in any room they have access to, which will make it easier for participants to keep track of who they are speaking to!
Of course, there still may be differences between meeting in the real and the virtual worlds. While you may be able to knock on the virtual door by sending a private chat to the owner of the breakout room, there will still be no chocolate chip cookies or any of the other refreshments typically found in law firm or printer’s conference rooms. But make no mistake, this upcoming release of Teams will be a big step forward in serving the needs of your virtual law practice.