New Report On State Supreme Courts Working Remotely | How Lawyers Are Preparing For Teleconference Arguments With SCOTUS
April 17, 2020
MOSTLY SUNNY WITH A CHANCE OF ZOOM
|Fix the Court released a new report today capturing how state courts are adjusting to the ongoing public health crisis. The report shows 22 of 50 state courts of last resort are now conducting remote hearings, some of which are livestreamed. Eleven more state courts of last resort plan to hold remote proceedings in the coming weeks. FTC’s Executive Director, GABE ROTH, said in a statement today, “The top judges in most states are donning their robes from a safe distance and are hearing arguments via Zoom, WebEx and other remote platforms, while allowing the public to watch or listen in live. The federal judiciary could learn a lot from them.” The new report is titled, “Mostly Sunny with a Chance of Zoom,” and you can read it all here.
VOTE FOR SCOTUS
|Melissa Quinn with CBS News reports Demand Justice, a progressive judicial advocacy group, is launching a six-figure ad buy focused on the high court’s decision to curtail absentee voting in Wisconsin’s primary. BRIAN FALLON, Executive Director of Demand Justice, says this is the year that SCOTUS will go “so far overboard with partisan rulings” that it could be a mobilizing force for progressive voters.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of The New York Times reacts to Wisconsin’s Republican leaders insisting on having their election despite the ongoing pandemic. The Ed Board urges that Americans shouldn’t have to risk their health, and even their lives, to vote in our elections — and Congress should act before November to make sure the Wisconsin debacle doesn’t happen again.
TOP-ED
|In The Washington Post, Catherine Rampell writes about “Dr. P” — who is in her first year of residency in emergency medicine and is fighting the novel coronavirus on the front lines in New York. Dr. P. also happens to be a Dreamer. Rampell writes that if SCOTUS “lets the Trump administration have its way,” Dr. P. might have to stop her lifesaving work permanently. “P. hopes to keep working, through the pandemic and afterward, in part because she thinks her experience could help improve emergency medicine treatment for the ‘uninsured, underprivileged, underserved’ — people like her parents and the patients she sees every day. She thinks she owes this to a country that has given her many opportunities. I asked her what she thinks America owes her, for the considerable risks she’s undertaking to save American lives. She hesitated at first. ‘I don’t expect anyone else to pay off my loans, or hold out the red carpet every time I go to work,’ she says. ‘I think I should be given a chance at a normal life, which is all I’ve been trying to have for the last 25 years.'”
TIPS FROM THE TRENCHES
|In The National Law Journal, Joseph Palmore shares some lessons learned from having recently argued an appeal via phone, hoping to provide helpful tips ahead of the upcoming virtual Supreme Court hearings. He writes, “I argued an appeal by phone last week. That gives me exactly one more such argument than many appellate lawyers—who, like me until very recently, have done zero. That doesn’t make me an expert, but my experience has led to thoughts on how the Supreme Court can make the best of this format.”
BUT WHAT WILL I WEAR?!
|Tucker Higgins with CNBC reports on how lawyers who are slated to argue before the justices next month are preparing for their virtual appearances. They’re having to figure out things like whether to use speakerphone or airpods, and what to do with having young children around who may distract or not understand what mom or dad is doing in the other room. Higgins suggests, “The questions facing the group of attorneys working on the cases to be argued next month are emblematic of the ways the coronavirus has reshaped how Americans work and live. While some of their cases are likely to live on in textbooks for decades, the attorneys face many of the same challenges confronting other white-collar professionals learning to work from home in the middle of a public health crisis.”