Then came the fun part: preparing to do an entire trial via videoconference. After another quick conference with our client, we decided to move forward with the Zoom trial in June. If we surrendered the trial date, rescheduling for an in-person bench trial could take months. At an April 23 case management conference held via Zoom, Judge Chen confirmed that a jury trial in June was out of the question, but that the case could proceed as scheduled as a bench trial, either by videoconference or in person if public health guidance and the court’s orders at the time allowed it.Īs counsel for the plaintiff, I had to make the agonizing decision: give up the jury or potentially delay the trial by several months or longer? After conferring with our client, we waived the jury trial and opted to have the case decided by the judge.Īt the final pretrial conference in late May, it was clear that an in-person bench trial would not be possible, and if we wanted to move forward with our scheduled June trial, it would have to be by videoconference. District Court for the Northern District of California (where the trial is set) canceled trials through May 1. At that time, we had no clue how much the world-and jury trials-would be upended by COVID-19.īy March 16, 2020, California and San Francisco had issued “shelter-in-place” orders due to the pandemic. In September 2019, the court set a jury trial to begin June 22, 2020. We represent the former Chief Financial Officer of a public company in a dispute over a significant severance payment, and we were looking forward to presenting the case to a jury. It wasn’t perfect, but it was smooth enough to satisfy ourselves and Judge Chen that we could pull this off.Ī Zoom trial was not what I had in mind when we filed this case. Then we practiced integrating Zoom with our trial presentation software (OnCue) to show trial exhibits and play deposition video clips. When Michelle couldn’t remember the ingredients, we used Zoom’s “share screen” function to show her the recipe in order to refresh her recollection. Opposing counsel dialed in from their conference room in Irvine, and my trial team assembled with appropriate distancing at our San Francisco office.īecause we did not want to preview the actual trial testimony, the practice run cross-examination consisted of me interrogating my partner Michelle about a strawberry shortbread recipe. The judge appeared for the practice run with a nifty Zoom virtual background that replicated his courtroom, along with the court reporter and clerk, in their respective remote locations. Judge Edward Chen invited all counsel to try out the court’s videoconference system to ensure that the trial would go smoothly. We were doing a practice run for a trial where everyone is participating via Zoom videoconference because of the COVID pandemic. The witness was my law partner, Michelle, and I wasn’t wearing pants. Only, I wasn’t in the courthouse, and neither was the judge. Last week I was in federal court cross-examining a witness about strawberry shortbread.
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