Pandemic Potpourri: The Legal Profession's Rediscovery of Teleconferencing

Because court rules provide that a deposition may be taken by telephone or other remote means, numerous judges have denied requests to extend stays of discovery and ordered the litigation to move forward.7 Waiting until some unknown date for the pandemic to end is becoming less of an option and being seen as a waste of time. During the first four months following the pandemic shutdown, Texas courts logged over 700,000 hours of virtual court hearings.8 Also, there were reports of (1) increased efficiencies because of reduced judicial travel between court locations and (2) more defendants in criminal cases showing up for hearings because of the ease of logging on from home. In federal court, a notable example demonstrating the extent to which one judge adopted the virtual alternative to get the job done involves an eight-week bench trial, which ended with a judgment against Cisco Systems, Inc. of $1.9 billion plus a percentage of future sales.9 An interesting side note of the trial involved the judge's decision to use the Zoom platform. The jury selection was live-streamed on YouTube, but the arguments and evidentiary presentations were not because a summary jury trial is a confidential alternative dispute resolution proceeding.11 Ultimately, the juries rendered separate verdicts, which hopefully the parties used to assist in their settlement discussions.