Month: April 2020

Tennessee Courts get yanked into the 21st Century. This week, I’ve had two telephonic court hearings.  They’ve both been a little strange.

On one, I called the Clerk’s office, who then gave me the Judge’s cell phone number. When I called the Judge on her cell phone, she was pretty clearly on a walk outside.

On the other, the court set up a call-in line for the docket call, with about 25 attorneys waiting for their specific matter to be called. When my matter was called, about 6 attorneys all spoke at once.

When my matter was over, I stayed on the line and listened to the next argument (on mute) to see how it flows and to plan for when I have to conduct my own complicated hearing. I learned that there is definitely an art to effective presentation via a phone call.  Also, it was weird, just silently lurking. A Bloomberg news reporter listened in on a similar court hearing, and she described it as “uncomfortable and oddly voyeuristic.”

I think all this can be figured out, but there’s definitely going to be learning curve.  The Tennessee Supreme Court conducted oral arguments via video this past week, and those went well.

Although, if I were one of the lawyers arguing, I would have 100% had to stand up for my presentation.

Personally, I’m not looking forward to more telephone or video hearings. I go to court a lot, and there’s so much you pick up by physically present in the courtroom, whether it’s a good read on the judge’s demeanor that day, on opposing counsel, or just the ability to be physically present when you’re making a huge argument for a client.

There is simply so much that goes into oral argument, and there’s so little of that in a phone call.

Zoom. Maybe we don’t need to see each other.  Speaking of how technology maybe doesn’t always make things better, when all this first hit, everybody wanted to do a Zoom call. But, then, after a week of seeing the decorations in everybody’s guest bedroom, we sort of figured out that all this could have been done via conference call.

Personally, I can’t decide where I look: at who is speaking; at myself (which I’m usually doing); or directly at the camera. Bonus points to the participants who just leave their camera off the whole time.

Either way, I guess I fall in the middle on this app. In some situations, it makes sense to be able to see the person and get a read of their social cues or to establish a rapport. For example, I represent a large class of clients on a matter, and I like to communicate with them via video so they can see me and my team.

Slack.  I acknowledge that I sound like a curmudgeon.  So, to counteract that, I’ll provide a whole-hearted endorsement of Slack, the real time messaging platform.  It seems like a really effective and well-done way to manage work teams.

Side-note: If you’re navigating all of this, I can’t recommend the Lawyerist website enough, as well as the Lawyerist podcast.  It’s run by a group of very smart lawyers, and they constantly talk about remote work, law firm management, and law tech and innovations.

I really enjoy all that they do on that site to educate lawyers.

New Developments versus Custom and Habit. It’s hard to tell how much of this is temporary or here to stay. Some part of that answer will depend on the Court leadership forcing all counties to fully embrace the new rules, policies, and technology.

Yesterday, we were figuring out how to get a garnishment form notarized with all of us spread out over town.  One of the lawyers on the e-mail chain correctly pointed out that Tenn. R. Civ. P. 72 and the brand new Supreme Court Orders allow for /e/-signatures and declarations in place of a notarized signature.

This was a garnishment, though, in a very small county, one that probably hasn’t read the Order from last week, and where the front desk clerk would take one look at the form, see the lack of a notarized signature, and potentially reject the filing.

This is what makes collections so different than other aspects of the law. Once you get the judgment, instead of dealing mainly with a judge, you’re mostly dealing with court clerk staff. You can be technically and legally correct, but, if you don’t follow their habit and custom?

Long story short, we got it notarized. Our goal wasn’t to be right. It was to get our garnishment issued.

My hope for all of this is that the Administrative Office of the Courts establishes a commission to look at all these issues and to anticipate as many of these issues that could arise in the future. And I hope that they don’t just pick the usual same people from the usual same big law firms to participate. Those lawyers don’t talk to clerks. They don’t file e-file documents. They don’t go to court on all kinds of matters.

The decisions that are being made today may set the policies and procedures across the state for years, and it’ll be interesting to see what changes implemented during this pandemic become the new custom and practice.