For longtime personal injury and medical malpractice attorney Cindy Robinson, her biggest and most consequential lesson learned since the global health pandemic is that “a realistic trial date is essential to resolving a case in a fair and just manner. Access to jury trials continues to be, and will always be, the cornerstone of our system of justice.”

Robinson, a founding partner of Robinson Mahoney in Fairfield, said it can be frustrating that some insurance companies “settle cases at a COVID discount … for the fact that a trial date was nowhere in sight, and it may have played on the fear of litigants who felt they might suddenly be living in an eerily apocalyptic world.”