About a year ago, two Georgia Superior Court judges who happened to be good friends decided to sit down and talk to each other in a format that would offer tips and tools of the trade for their younger colleagues.

They decided on a podcast so new judges could listen in their cars while traveling around their rural circuits or while sitting in metro Atlanta traffic. They used the recording studio and expertise at the University of Georgia School of Law in Athens but applied for a small grant to buy their own sound equipment just in case they needed it someday.

Someday is here. The latest edition of "The Good Judge-ment Podcast" is about how to manage during the novel coronavirus pandemic, with courts under an emergency order that closes them to nonessential functions but requires them to take care of the rest. Instead of meeting in Athens—about halfway between them—Judges C. LaTain Kell of the Cobb Circuit and J. Wade Padgett of the Augusta Circuit both stayed home.

Padgett used the new sound equipment in his bonus room. Kell recorded himself on his cellphone in his guest room, with pillows stacked around him to absorb the echo. At the same time, they videoconferenced so they could give each other visual cues as they would if they were together.

"Truthfully, other than a couple of minor issues with sound quality on my end, it worked just fine," Kell said in an email from the pair of hosts.

"We discussed some of our two courts' solutions for dealing with the requirements of social distancing and the courtroom setting," Padgett said. "Innovations like how to avoid multiple people touching the same document during a plea and how to utilize videoconferencing during the COVID epidemic."

As in the other 35 or so podcasts they'd already recorded, they chatted good-humoredly and asked each other questions—the answers to which they already knew.

Padgett asked Kell to describe his method of marking off his courtroom with blue painter's tape to keep the participants at least 6 feet apart. Kell asked Padgett to explain how he came up with a system to keep more than one person from touching any single document.

"If we're being honest, we weren't ready for this," Kell said. "I don't think anybody in the world was ready for this."

Padgett expressed his shock when a defense lawyer tested positive for the virus a day after being in the courtroom—and in the jail.

They told stories of creative solutions—some of which may survive the pandemic: making greater use of video for hearings, ending crowding the courtroom with 100-position or more criminal calendar calls, rethinking jury selection entirely to avoid squeezing people together 10 to a row. "If someone coughs, you know every head is going to spin around," Kell said on the podcast.

"Tain and I are already scheduling the next mobile podcasting session on some nuts and bolts issues," Padgett said in the email. "We also hope to pull off a third party interview or two. We just intend to take advantage of this unusual down time to continue the broadcast and see where it takes us."

The project grew from a one-week new judge "boot camp" the two lead for the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education. They said the group's director, Doug Ashworth, gave them the idea. They credited a "really great sound editor, Stephen Turner, who can fix a lot of our issues."

"COVID-19 and the Impact on Georgia's Judiciary" is available on the "Good Judge-ment" podcast website, along with the other titles in the collection.

They closed with acknowledgement of the struggles and concerns of all judges—and all lawyers, and everyone right now—plus advice to remember.

"We're all in the same boat," Padgett said. "Just keep paddling."

Kell added his version of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 guidelines: "The CDC recommends, always wash your hands after podcasting."