Virtual court

The Future of Courts – Hybrid and Virtual Courts As courtrooms around the country embrace a new hybrid reality, judicial leaders are tasked with understanding how to use technology to improve experiences and increase access to justice. This guide explores the future of courts — offering industry insights and tips on how to create a courtroom designed for tomorrow. The paradigm for legal proceedings shifted entirely in the past few years. As traditional, in-person processes went digital, state, local, and federal judiciaries found technology to be a solution for continuity. Suddenly, proceedings conducted in a closed courtroom expanded to an accessible virtual realm, enabling greater attendance, reducing costs, and expediting information sharing. Now, as organizations everywhere re-introduce in-person activity, it’s important to examine how this digital transformation helped improve the justice system and which aspects of virtual collaboration should remain a permanent part of it. In this guide, we’ll discuss what it takes to create a hybrid courtroom that incorporates both in-person and online aspects of court communications and business matters, ultimately improving public services for the better. 2020’s events changed everything — how we worked, learned, and lived. Every sector experienced significant disruption, and the government was no exception. Federal, state, and local governments had to rapidly shift to online operations — no small feat for institutions known for ...

After more than 260,000 virtual court events involving more than 2.7 million participants conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the New Jersey Supreme Court has decided that the “framework for the future of court operations” is online. The court recently issued an order outlining the ways in which technology can “provide expanded options for access, participation, timeliness, and justice.” Identifying When Virtual Proceedings May Be Appropriate The New Jersey Supreme Court’s order sets forth several new parameters. First and foremost, judges will have the discretion to conduct court proceedings virtually or in person moving forward in generally all civil matters and certain criminal proceedings. However, some prescribed categories will default to one format or the other. For example, unless an individual party can present facts and circumstances that would otherwise require an in-person hearing, the following matters will be handled virtually: routine motion arguments, criminal initial appearances, hearings involving criminal defendants already in state custody, small claims trials, uncontested guardianships, uncontested divorces, and other routine civil hearings. By contrast, criminal jury trials will proceed in person, while appellate arguments, sentencing hearings, juvenile delinquency proceedings, evidentiary hearings, and other non-routine proceedings will generally proceed in person unless all parties consent to a virtual hearing. The court explained that it consid...

This article was published online on April 13, 2021. I n July, Michelle Rick, then a circuit-court judge in two Michigan counties, tweeted cheerily about a divorce she’d recently finalized. The participants had appeared in court via their smartphones. “He was on the road & parked his car to attend; she video-tx’d from her work breakroom,” the judge wrote. They were done in 15 minutes—faster than the proverbial Reno divorce. Last spring, as COVID‑19 infections surged for the first time, many American courts curtailed their operations. As case backlogs swelled, courts moved online, at a speed that has amazed—and sometimes alarmed—judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. In the past year, U.S. courts have conducted millions of hearings, depositions, arraignments, settlement conferences, and even trials—nearly entirely in civil cases or for minor criminal offenses—over Zoom and other meeting platforms. As of late February, Texas, the state that’s moved online most aggressively, had held 1.1 million remote proceedings. “Virtual justice” (the preferred, if unsettling, term) is an emergency response to a dire situation. But it is also a vision some judicial innovators had long tried to realize. One leading booster, Michigan Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack, told me that going online can make courts not only safer but “more transparent, more accessible, and more convenient.” Witnesses, jurors, and litigants no longer need to miss hours of work and fight traffic. Attorneys w...

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic introduced Americans to many changes. One of them is adopting virtual hearings in court. When the pandemic forced the closure of many businesses and practically all government offices, court systems began evaluating the elevated use of virtual hearings. Until this point, the overwhelming majority of most civil and criminal court cases were in-person proceedings. Citizens have many questions about virtual hearings, so we’ll attempt to answer the most pressing ones. There are differences in court proceedings. For example, preliminary hearings and trials may be handled differently. Trials handled and decided by a single judge differ from those requiring a pool of 12 jurors. Remember, all 50 states and the federal government establish procedures for handling court cases in their respective jurisdictions. Therefore, you need to confirm if and how a court system in your community uses virtual hearing online. This article is simply an overview of the process and is not intended to provide legal advice. What Is a Virtual Court Hearing? A virtual hearing is when all relevant parties to a legal case appear over one or more phone lines or via video conferencing instead of appearing in-person in for a court hearing. Many judges have conducted some proceedings via phone calls for several years. Most of these conversations addressed preliminary or status issues. Courts held few, if any, trials virtually. Today courts in most states are hearing actual co...

Please note: Parties should appear in person at the courthouse, unless otherwise authorized to appear by telephone or WebEx During the COVID-19 global pandemic, the 4th Judicial District has implemented virtual courtrooms through WebEx in order to continue to provide essential judicial services to the public. Please click the ICON for the Judge/Division that pertains to yourcase or the case you wish to observe. If you are not a party to the case, you may not participate. To find a scheduled court date and division, click here for Please keep in mind, a virtual courtroom has all the decorum requirementsof a physical courtroom: • Professional attire is required when appearing in court in person or via video. • Be prepared and organized. • Keep background noise to a mininum. • Be in a location with excellent cellular or internet service. • Only one person should talk at a time. Do not interrupt or talk over others. • Your case may not be called right away and may take longer than if you were physically present. Please be patient. • Making any video or audio recordings of WebEx court proceedings is strictly prohibited. For onlineWebex training for attorneys and all court hearing participants click here: Free access to virtual courtrooms via library laptops - click here for additional information

Credit: Tracy J. Lee for NPR Cindee Crosby got a summons in the mail calling her for jury duty. So one day, in October 2020, she logged on to Alameda County's jury selection video call. It would be the longest Zoom call of her life: 2 1/2 weeks. That's how long it took to pick a jury. Crosby watched as one person after another showed up in a small square on screen, answering the same set of questions from attorneys. There were breaks, of course, for meals and sleep, day after day. Crosby was selected and served. The on-and-off trial by Zoom lasted until spring. That trial is part of an ad hoc experiment playing out all over the country. In Alameda County, Calif., home to cities such as Oakland and Berkeley, Judge Brad Seligman faced a challenge. Like other court systems, the Superior Court's civil division he supervised faced a huge case backlog caused by the pandemic. Cindee Crosby was summoned to jury duty during the COVID-19 pandemic, which required her to meet remotely over Zoom for several months in Oakland, Calif. Marissa Leshnov for NPR To get cases moving, Alameda County Superior Court decided to hold civil jury trials virtually, starting with selecting a jury. Seligman had lots of concerns. "I was extremely skeptical about whether it could work, and my concerns going in were, would any juror even show up," Seligman says. Showing up was just one possible problem. Other judges and lawyers worried about spotty internet access, computer availability and the potential ...

The virtual court proceedings that reshaped the judiciary during Covid-19 will outlive the pandemic, as state courts across the country rewrite their rules to incorporate the lessons learned from the crisis. The shift has the prospect of making courts more accessible for those who might have been shut out due to cost or travel time. However, it’s also forcing courts to grapple with the necessary technological upgrades and changes to trial procedures to ensure hearings remain fair for everyone. “I look at this moment as an incredible opportunity to concretize some innovations that happened because of the pandemic and to keep up the momentum,” said Danielle Hirsch, interim court services director of the National Center for State Courts’ court consulting division. Federal courts have “Although the fundamental feature of the court system is that it’s heard in court, there were advantages to the use of technology in remote proceedings that we hadn’t really been able to understand before because we hadn’t needed to rely on them so much,” said David Barron, chief judge for the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. State Courts State courts amendingtheir rules of civil and criminal procedure or updating their guidance about remote appearances are trying to incorporate the many benefits of virtual hearings. They save lawyers from having to commute across the state for matters that can be resolved in a 15 minute Zoom meeting. They also encourage participation from parties that ...