Justice looks different inside a global pandemic. It starts. It stops. And then it starts again. Within this rhythm, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has held more than 100 jury trials since the start of the pandemic, relying on an aggressive, multi-pronged safety protocol. This effort is partly technological, with non-contact digital thermometers authenticating the health of all court visitors. It's also architectural. Attorneys and their clients communicate through telephonic devices that allow them to whisper to each other from a distance. Attorneys and witnesses address the court from Plexiglas booths, a setup that enables them to remove their masks and show their faces.

But it's not just the architecture of justice that has changed. So have its tactics. Matt Haicken, an attorney based in New York, recounts a recent case. In 2020, his client, an elderly woman, tripped on a piece of wood while walking along a closed access road outside Manhattan's Stuyvesant Town. She took a hard fall on the concrete and severely damaged her wrist. The accident was captured by a high-definition surveillance camera, which also showed that the piece of wood was left near the median by a construction crew member. Legally, there's nothing particularly noteworthy about the case. Still, by March 2021, Haicken, who had filed a lawsuit on the woman's behalf six months prior, had made little headway in his negotiations with the contractor and its insurance company. This was unusual. "[I]f it's on video, they usually make some effort to settle early," he says. "But they're not returning my calls."