M.C. Sungaila, who became Buchalter’s first official chair of its appellate practice last summer, doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that most of her work during the last year and a half has been in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The partner said the federal appellate courts—which have bigger budgets than state courts, a preexisting remote technology infrastructure and often decide cases without oral argument—have been keeping cases moving during the COVID-19 pandemic.