Virtual court hearings should have a place post-pandemic
As a family law attorney serving clients throughout Broward County for the past 28 years, going to the courthouse several times a week was part of my normal routine. When the courthouse shut down last year for in-person hearings, I was highly skeptical of “virtual” hearings. To my surprise, not only did hearings via Zoom work, but they resulted in a great many unanticipated benefits, especially for my clients.
Most of my clients do not regularly go to the courthouse and do not work or live in the immediate area. Prior to the pandemic, attending hearings meant not only dealing with the stress of legal troubles, but also traffic, parking, long security lines and long elevator lines, not to mention missed work or school, arranging for childcare and other significant financial and emotional stressors.
Enter the concept of a virtual hearing. My clients can now attend hearings via Zoom and all they need is a smart phone and internet. No more battling downtown traffic, potential accidents, tickets for expired meters, paying to park and the seemingly endless waiting at security checkpoints, elevators and even in the hallways until your case is called. And perhaps more important than their killing time in courthouse hallways, my clients no longer need to pay me to go to the courthouse and do the same.
For instance, recently I had a 30-minute virtual hearing scheduled at 1:30 p.m., for a client who is a school teacher. Prior to virtual hearings, my client would have had to take most of the day off from work. However, because this was a virtual hearing, she was able to attend her hearing, losing at most one hour of her time from work and her classroom. Additionally, she did not have to pay my travel time to the courthouse or my wait time while the hearing was waiting to be called.
Aside from these advantages, tensions can run high in family law cases and the availability of a Zoom hearing or mediation keeps the parties in separate locations, avoiding the potential for in-person confrontations. The ripple effect of the benefits of virtual hearings is undeniable.
Certainly, there are occasions in which Zoom hearings can be challenging — maybe your internet connection fails, and there’s always the frustration of having to (or forgetting to) unmute yourself, mute yourself or turn on your camera. However, that being said, if we balance the benefit to persons in need of legal services against these minor inconveniences to the lawyers and judges, the benefits to the general public far outweigh any inconveniences to those that serve the public.
Virtual hearings cannot replace all of the courts’ work, such as full-day trials. Still, moving forward, I hope the powers that be realize that even though this past year has been difficult for our community, the change in how we conduct our legal process demonstrated that perhaps this type of change has been a long time coming. We should remember that we serve the public, and their best interests should always be at the heart of all decisions made.