(Reuters) - In the olden days (i.e. before March) most big law firms had routine procedures for hiring lateral partners—hours of in-person meetings capped off by a group lunch and/or dinner, where your would-be colleagues could see if you chewed with your mouth closed.

It wasn't so much an etiquette test as a gut check. Because a law partnership is supposed to be more than a strictly financial arrangement - your partners should be your trusted colleagues, the people you'd want in your (walnut-paneled) foxhole.

As the COVID-19 shutdown enters its sixth month, Big Law has faced a choice: Hunker down and wait for the return of business as usual - or take advantage of opportunities to snap up talent in select practices, even if it means doing the interviews online.

For Proskauer Rose chairman Steven Ellis, it was an easy call. "We didn't want the pandemic to get in the way of our strategy," he said.

On Monday, Proskauer announced the addition of four lateral partners to its marquee private credit practice from Schulte Roth & Zabel: Frederic Ragucci, Michael Mezzacappa, Marc Friess and Ji Hye You.

It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment move, Ragucci said. His group first started talking with Proskauer in late January, and had the benefit of meeting once in person with Ellis, who founded the firm's private credit practice 17 years ago. But the rest of the interviewing happened via a series of video conference calls.

"We met a lot of people. In some respects, it was more efficient," Ragucci said. "It was better than a phone call, but not quite like being in the same room."

Indeed, it can be a challenge to judge someone's character without meeting face-to-face. But some firms have gotten creative.

When Jane Byrne joined McDermott Will & Emery last month from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, where she co-chaired the insurance coverage and reinsurance litigation practice, she recalled being asked "a very odd" question during an online interview.

McDermott chairman Ira Coleman said the firm has a no jerks policy. But how do you tell if job candidates are jerks when talking to them on a computer screen?

Byrne said Coleman asked her to open the Uber app on her phone and share her rating as a passenger - drivers will ding passengers who are rude, loud, dirty or generally unpleasant. (Luckily, her rating was excellent.)

Assessing cultural fit was also important to bankruptcy partner Omar Alaniz, who moved to Reed Smith from Baker Botts last week. As a gay Hispanic lawyer, he said he appreciated Reed Smith's efforts to connect him (remotely) with the head of the firm's LGBT group and to help him get a sense, as he put it, of "What is it like to be a gay lawyer in your office?"

Including Alaniz, Reed Smith has added nine lateral partners since March 1. "We are running toward opportunities instead of putting everything on pause," said partner Casey Ryan, who serves as the firm's global head of legal personnel. "Everything obviously has been remote, but in a way, it's made it almost more personal and familiar. On Zoom, you may inadvertently get to meet someone's pet or child."

Health care industry expert Delphine O'Rourke, who joined Goodwin Procter on Monday from Duane Morris, agreed.

Compared to meeting in-person in a "sterile conference room" or even a restaurant, O'Rourke said she found talking to people via video from their homes provided "more of a human element."

It was also easier logistically. Goodwin "indulged my requests to meet more and more people," O'Rourke said, estimating that she spent 56 hours talking to her prospective new colleagues before deciding to make the move. That almost certainly would not have happened if the meetings were in-person.

It also helps if you already know many of the people you're going to be working with. "San Diego is not that large of a legal community," said Stephen Ferruolo, who joined Perkins Coie's office there on Monday as a partner in the emerging companies & venture capital practice, focusing on the life sciences. His new partners are "group of people I really knew and respected and liked."

For the past nine years, Ferruolo was dean of the University of San Diego School of Law. "I was an unusual lateral candidate," he said. But he was impressed by Perkins Coie's "consistent message rooted in its strategic plan," which calls for growing its life sciences practice and presence in California.

Despite the pandemic, not every firm has made the switch to video hiring.

Davis Polk & Wardwell on Wednesday announced it snagged antitrust partner D. Jarrett Arp from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Arp said that while the recruiting process included some Zoom calls, the firm "went the extra mile" to find (socially distanced) ways to interact in person.

He lives right outside Washington, D.C., in Alexandria, Virginia, and his house has a spacious front porch. A stream of Davis Polk partners based in the area stopped by to have a beer or glass of wine outdoors, or to take a walk with him.

Arp then traveled about 265 miles to Westchester County, New York, where he "spent a lovely afternoon" in the backyard of the co-head of the M&A group. The recruiting culminated in a poolside chat in managing partner Neil Barr's backyard.

"It was a wonderful way to get to know my prospective new partners," Arp said.