Judges And Court Employees Are Heroes Of The Pandemic

We should all thank and applaud their amazing efforts during the past several months.

There has been much discussion over the past several months about individuals on the front lines of the ongoing pandemic working essential jobs despite the risk of being exposed to COVID-19. Nurses, physicians, and other professionals involved with healthcare have been exposed to extraordinary risks and have made incredible sacrifices to complete their important jobs. In addition, delivery people, grocery store workers, and other essential employees have also been unable to quarantine at home to work their jobs, and their efforts have helped all of us get through this crisis. As I have witnessed in my own practice, judges and other court employees have also made sacrifices during the pandemic, and they should be applauded for their efforts during this uncertain time.

Many attorneys already understand how judges and court employees are especially at risk of being exposed to COVID-19, and this was even more true during the early days of the pandemic before stay-at-home orders were implemented. Judges and court employees naturally see numerous members of the public and attorneys each day in order to continue operations. In many jurisdictions, litigants and lawyers pack into courtrooms on a regular basis so that judges and court employees can get through their dockets in a relatively short amount of time.

Accordingly, judges and court employees were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 in many jurisdictions, including New York and New Jersey, where I practice. Several New York judges died because of COVID-19, and hundreds of court employees were infected with the virus. Certain courthouses, such as those in Brooklyn, were especially devastated. Of course, some of these judges possibly did not take precautions against COVID-19 even after the lethality of the virus was known. However, there is no denying that the judiciary has been especially impacted by COVID-19.

Even though many people are able to work from home right now, some judges and court employees have not been able to conduct all of their operations remotely. Indeed, arraignments, mental hygiene hearings, and other emergency proceedings often needed to be conducted in person even after the pandemic was in full force. In addition, any trials that were initiated prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic mostly had to continue in person until their conclusion. Of course, judges and court employees have taken preventative measures to reduce the risk of exposure to the virus, but since many judicial employees continue to come to work to maintain operations, they are at a greater risk of being exposed to the virus. The risks that judges and court employees take during the pandemic should be acknowledged, and they should be applauded for continuing their jobs despite these issues.

Judges and court employees are also heroes of the pandemic for the efforts they have taken to continue operations remotely after stay-at-home orders went into effect. Before the pandemic, many courts were not set up for remote operations. Some jurisdictions still required that court filings and other applications be presented in person, and many courts were unable to process new filings for months after stay-at-home orders were implemented. In addition, many courts did not use phone conferences and remote conferencing apps for many proceedings prior to the pandemic.

In an extremely short amount of time, judges and court officers have adapted in order to continue operations remotely. For instance, New York courts launched an entirely new electronic filing system that could be used to send documents to courts where an established electronic-filing system had not already existed. In addition, some operations, including the filing of retainer statements and closing statements, became entirety electronic during the pandemic, whereas these documents needed to be presented in person or mailed in months ago.

Judges and court employees have also modified their personal lives to continue court operations from home. Judges and their staff are regular people, and they have family responsibilities, health concerns, and all of the other issues each of us has been dealing with during the pandemic. Yet, these individuals have continued to provide the care and attention needed for hundreds or thousands of litigation matters.

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A few weeks ago, I had a settlement conference with a judge who phoned into the conference from home. Earlier this month, I also attended a court conference via Skype for Business with a court attorney who was attending from her living room. Despite the nontraditional nature of our meetings, we were still able to hold the conferences and move the cases forward. I have received emails from court staff at all times of the day and night, and I know these professionals must be overworked and overburdened because of their creative solutions for continuing operations. However, I have never heard complaints from any judicial employee, and they seem dedicated to the mission of administering justice during this trying time.

All told, judges and court employees are heroes of the pandemic, and we should all thank and applaud their amazing efforts during the past several months. Many judicial employees are at higher risk of exposure to COVID-19 and have adopted truly creative means to continue operations remotely. In addition, court employees have worked tirelessly over the past several months to ensure that the administration of justice was minimally affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.


Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

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