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It has been eight months since the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in New York—and it happened to be a lawyer. It feels as if our entire legal practice has been through a fairly vigorous rinse cycle in that time. From a total shutdown of the court system and then an “emergency matters only” policy, we have now progressed to a phase where certain New York courts have successfully conducted in-person jury trials in recent weeks. New Yorkers in general and New York lawyers in particular have lived up to “New York Tough.”
Seeing as we remain in the midst of the pandemic—as Governor Andrew Cuomo put it, getting ready for the second half of the game—this article focuses on taking stock of how the pandemic has affected litigators and litigation practices, which developments may and should be here to stay, and some best practices for navigating the new normal of virtual advocacy, whether in discovery or in trials.
