ALL THE GOOD OF 2020

 Get lemons and make lemonade. It is what we as criminal defense attorneys are trained to do. So lets take a look at an awful year and figure out what good came of it? 

VIRTUAL HEARINGS

 This is the game changer for law and the courts.

Civil Court:  Civil judges have five minute motion calendars. A lawyer who lives in Kendall and has an office in Dadeland will spend two hours commuting to downtown Miami, then waiting in Court, then driving back to the office. Now with virtual hearings, they can handle it in on Zoom in their office. It saves time and money and even helps the environment by taking carbon emitting cars off the streets. It is a no-brainer which is why we are sure some judges will want to immediately go back to live hearings and no Zoom. There is no reason why even more complex hearings like  summary judgements (whatever those are) cannot be done virtually. 

Criminal Court: Misdemeanor courts can save defendants and witnesses a lot of time and money. County Court is often called "The People's Court" but really it is "The Poor People's Court." As we know, many people struggle to pay bills with two or even three jobs. We cannot tell you how many school teachers we have met as Uber drivers or Starbucks Baristas.   An appearance for a calendar call or arraignment  involves taking a morning off from work, paying for parking, and then sitting in court as lawyers come streaming in and cutting ahead of you. Now, with a virtual hearing, a person can take a half hour break from work, step into a quiet room, and turn down the State's offer of 364 for expectorating on the sidewalk. Once again, we are confident Judges will want to return to the old ways. One thing that they are certain to say is "how can we do in person and virtual hearings at the same time? It will be too difficult."  

The answer is that when people set their court date you give them an option for virtual arraignments and report dates and then the clerks put those hearings into a Judge's schedule for the week. At 9 a.m.  a Judge does in person arraignments. At 9:30 a.m.  virtual arraignments. At 10 a.m. in person reports. At 10:30 a.m. virtual reports. And so on and so on. 

The great Golf Champion Gary Player broke the mold for golf players and athletes in the 1960's. He stretched and ran and did yoga and lifted weights and studied nutrition back when such things were ridiculed. Well into his 90's, he does 1000 sit-ups and 100 pushups a day. He has ten rules for living, the first and best is "Change is the Price of Survival." 

We have a real chance here to remake the court system as more user friendly. The world and the virus has literally pushed an antiquated court system into the 21st century. Credit to Judge Soto and her team of Judges who got it up and running quickly. Please do not go back to the old ways. Let it be that sometime around 2040 a group of lawyers and judges are meeting on line and a few of the old-timers reminisce about the days when lawyers and litigants had to go to court in person for arraignments, status conferences, and motions. 

Lets take the lemons of 2020 and make some lemonade (virtually, of course). 

EASTER SUNDAY 2020 UPDATE

Good Easter Sunday morning. You won't get this from your political leaders, but as the virus curve flattens and infections and hospitalizations are appearing to peak, we are reminded of the quote of the greatest leader of the 20th Century: 

"Now this is not the end. It is not even  the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning."
Winston Spencer Churchill, November 10, 1942, House of Commons Speech on the English Victory over Germany at El Alamein, Egypt. 

We are often asked if things will return to normal and when. The answer is "No" and "never". This is permanent change, and that is not a bad thing. For example, the ridiculous habit of shaking hands upon meeting is now gone. Good riddance. 

The Virus is a Black-Swann event which will eventually drag this country, kicking and screaming, into positive change. We will spend more on Health Care. We now understand that Health-Defense is as important, perhaps more important, than new military spending. We need larger stockpiles of ventilators and vaccines and antibiotics and ICU Beds,  and less stockpiles of bullets and bombs. We need to train more doctors and nurses, and less bomber pilots. There should  be a military-health service, where there are two divisions of health care workers trained to parachute into areas of need- like NYC, Boston and Michigan, currently. We need a systemic plan to move health care workers and supplies, like a military invasion, into areas of need. 

We need to reexamine government's role in a capitalist economic system when the system collapses. By necessity Government needs to have a bigger role as a partner when corporations fail and people need support. And by support we mean a weekly/monthly distributions  of food, money and health services to help Americans in these troubled times. 

And we need to understand that Change is the price of survival. 
Imagine you owned a Typewriter sales and service store in 1970. In 1971 the NY Times reported that "word processing" was the "buzzword" for the year among businesses. In 1976 the Wang Corporation transitioned a word processor to a CRT screen. Wordstar was introduced in 1978, WordPerfect in 1979, and the death knell for typewriters was sounded. 
Should the world have delayed business productivity to save a small industry? Of course not. 

Now is the time for us to reexamine other industries that may face a similar fate to the typewriter. Chief among them may well be the lawyer who makes her living appearing in court everyday. What we now know is that is not as necessary as it used to be. By allowing clients to telecommute to court, we save the expenditure of fossil fuels in driving to court, and we allow the client to stay at work. In the traffic and misdemeanor and small claims civil arena, less people will need to hire lawyers to represent them just to save having to take off work and go to court. Court reporters will face a changing environment, as the electronic recording of court proceedings moves to the cloud. 

The Law, like other industries such as health care, sports, travel and entertainment, gyms and education, is about to undergo radical change. 
Are you ready? 

Go have a couple of chocolate Easter Eggs and ponder the future. We give you permission to break your diet today. 
HR.