As Erika Munro Kennerly was settling into her new job as the associate general counsel at Endeavor Content in New York, the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to spread across the country.

Soon, Kennerly, who’d planned to expand her legal team, which also has members in Los Angeles, was dealing with a hiring freeze and an avalanche of unexpected legal work. One of her lawyers went on leave due to the death of a family member. Another left for a different company.