In 2020, The Sedona Conference® (TSC) released the Third Edition of the Cooperation Proclamation: Resources for the Judiciary (which I covered here). Of course, a lot has happened in two years regarding the pandemic and enforced remote work, which has extended to court proceedings, leading to publication of a special supplement to the Sedona Conference Guide for judges to concentrate on managing those situations.
As the Introduction to the supplement states: “It is now accepted that remote and hybrid proceedings are here to stay.” After all, telephonic proceedings for routine case status conferences have been the norm for decades. But video conferencing has taken it up several notches, especially in the past couple of years.
The supplement to the Sedona Conference Guide for judges concentrates on the management of remote and hybrid pretrial proceedings in civil litigation. It pulls together the best of the local rules, court orders, decisions, and scholarly analysis addressing the courts’ experiences of operating for two years under a variety of pandemic-related restrictions, with an emphasis on the lessons learned that will have lasting impact, long after the restrictions are lifted. In particular, the successful conduct of remote and hybrid proceedings requires a heightened level of cooperation between opposing parties and closer attention to case management issues by the court, which builds on the theme of the Cooperation Proclamation and the prior editions of the Resources for the Judiciary.
The supplement to the Sedona Conference Guide for judges is contained within a tidy 10-page PDF available for download here.
So, what do you think? Should things go back to the way they were pre-pandemic or is it time to embrace remote proceedings in courts wherever possible? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
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