Elbert P. Tuttle Courthouse, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Atlanta. (Photo: Rebecca Breyer)

The evolving threat of the COVID-19 virus has prompted the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to cancel its May judicial conference, Chief Judge Ed Carnes announced Wednesday. 

The circuit's 2020 conference—which brings together federal judges from Georgia, Florida and Alabama, as well as lawyers who practice in the circuit—was scheduled to take place from May 6-9 in Atlanta. The Eleventh Circuit conferences are held biennially and generally qualify as continuing legal education credits for the attorneys and judges who attend.

Carnes said in a news release that he decided to cancel the conference given warnings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that canceling the conference was "necessary and prudent in the interest of all those who would have attended."

Conferences in other industries have been canceled across the globe as well to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, also known as coronavirus.

Carnes said he hopes to reschedule the conference sometime in 2021, "if circumstances permit," given the importance of judicial conferences to the bench and the bar.

Carnes canceled the conference a day after the Supreme Court of Georgia issued a court order temporarily waiving the six-hour, in person continuing legal education requirement for active members of the State Bar of Georgia. The waiver is effective immediately and, for now, will remain in place through March 31. Bar members will still be required to complete the 12-hour CLE requirement but may do so through self-study, in-house, or online seminars.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the clerk's office of the Georgia Court of Appeals held an all-day drill with a skeleton staff to test its ability to continue court functions in an emergency.

Court clerk Steve Castlen said 35 people from the clerk's office and court administration worked remotely, leaving just three staff members in the courthouse. Castlen said that the appellate court has been preparing for several years to install technology that allows all the judges, their staff attorneys and administrative assistants to work remotely.

"As of today, every person in our office is able to work from home to accomplish every task needed to keep our systems running—except one," Castlen said Wednesday. "The one thing we cannot do from home is collect a paper filing from a pro se person who walks in with paper in hand, and hands it to one of us."

Castlen said that whether and how the court may conduct oral arguments is "something we are monitoring" and is under discussion by the en banc court. No oral arguments are scheduled for March, he said.

"Our term [of art] is 'continuity of operations' during an emergency no matter what it is," he Castlen added. "Coronavirus just happens to be the emergency we are dealing with today."