Annie Gamez, partner with Holland & Knight in Miami.

Over the past two decades, I have handled my fair share of telephonic depositions, mediations and hearings in state, federal and bankruptcy courts. However, if you would have told me a month ago that I would be conducting a two-day final evidentiary hearing in federal court via Zoom with the court, counsel, parties and witnesses appearing virtually from various locations in South Florida and Guatemala, I would not have believed you.

Five years ago, I represented a Nicaraguan company in a week-long final arbitration hearing in New York. We had several witnesses testify via video conference from New Zealand and Nicaragua, including some requiring translations from Tagalog and Spanish. And then, three weeks before our firm shifted to remote operations, I represented a South Korean client in both a virtual deposition and mediation again dealing with another time zone and language. My client's virtual appearance at both of those proceedings required a court order, logistical planning with the court reporter's offices in Miami and South Korea, the mediator's office, a local translator and significant cooperation with opposing counsel.

When I volunteered to take on the pro bono representation of a Guatemalan mother sued for the return of her minor son a month ago, I did not anticipate that the Hague Convention's requisite expedited adjudication would be a virtual adjudication. Ten days into the representation, we attended our first virtual pretrial conference via the Southern District of Florida's Cisco Jabber platform, and encountered an intolerably distracting echo each time counsel spoke. Opposing counsel also informed us that his client and witnesses located in Guatemala would likely only be able to appear telephonically. For a moment, I was panic-stricken contemplating how this trial would play out under these unusual and challenging circumstances. Thankfully, those internal alarm bells rung much lower the following week when we held our second pretrial conference—this time over the court's newly acquired Zoom platform.

This time, I was armed with a more detailed checklist full of logistical questions and considerations that required discussion and agreement with the court, its IT staff and opposing counsel. We had to address everything from the seemingly trivial—whether counsel and witnesses could use a headset and access exhibits on their mobile devices, the location of the interpreters; the more critical, like the swearing-in of witnesses, filing of exhibits; to more tech-focused questions such as whether we could use the "screen-share" function on Zoom to help witnesses and the court follow along with an exhibit.

Once we worked out those details, my team's attention then turned to coordination with our own IT staff and witnesses. I personally spent a few hours testing access and use of Zoom and exhibits with both a local witness, and another located in Guatemala. We also had to work out the logistics within our Miami office so that we could set up our trial team, client and witness there in a socially distant way.

I finally met the client in person the morning of the first day of the hearing; all prior communication had been by phone and WhatsApp. All trial preparations with our supervising pro bono partner, two associates and paralegal were done via Zoom. Once the hearing commenced, we had to resolve a few logistical and procedural hiccups. First, we had no idea that Zoom had a special language feature that would have made it possible for persons to hear the interpreter speak only in their preferred language—Spanish or English (unfortunately, since the firm's version of the software did not have this feature, we were unable to use it during the proceedings).

Second, we had to figure out a convenient and nondisruptive method to "pass notes" among the trial team, which was spread out in our boardroom over two parallel 36-feet conference tables. Third, we utilized one laptop per lawyer and witness with a speakerphone acting as the dedicated microphone to maximize speaker visibility and minimize background noise. Fourth, we had to ensure that the witnesses appearing virtually from Guatemala that were all in the same two-room apartment with the petitioner were sequestered during the hearing.

Some of these details may seem inconsequential or would have been a nonissue when conducting a live trial, but they became ever so important when venturing into the new reality of a virtual trial. As the first day went on, we all got more adept at muting our respective lines when not speaking to avoid background noise and echo, accurately describing exhibits to make it easy for witnesses to locate, using the chat function with the court's IT personnel to resolve sporadic issues, and ensuring the interpreters were fully translating questions and testimony. By the time we concluded in the mid-afternoon the following day, it felt like "old hat."

Annie Gamez is a litigation and real estate partner in Holland & Knight's Miami office and a member of the firm's South Florida litigation team.