As almost all of us are well aware, the pandemic has caused jurisdictions throughout the country and the rest of the world to halt or change radically criminal and civil proceedings. Afraid that the aggregation of parties, judges and judicial personnel, litigators, witnesses, prospective and actual jurors (trial and grand jurors both) in a courthouse that has not taken all steps to prevent the spread of the pandemic, e.g., have all persons take vaccines to prevent those persons from contracting the disease, test all persons for the presence of the pandemic, set up and police social distancing steps (such as glass or see-through plastic walls between sections of the courtroom that will prevent persons with the disease spread it by talking, coughing and so on), etc., will lead to that spread, courthouses throughout the country have shut down, defendants and ostensible victims have had their lives put on hold, and the situation worsens as each day more suits are filed, arrests made, and so on.

In my hometown of Philadelphia—and, I expect, most places—when in-person litigation shut down as the virus spread until it came to be thought of as a pandemic, personnel affected by the shutdowns have been planning to overcome the resultant problems in two ways: open the closed centers of litigation to allow in appropriate personnel; or, use web-based digital communications devices to recreate the personal interactions of which litigation is comprised. As each solution is developed, developers run into problem after problem. In this month's article, we will discuss whether either solution will work and, if not, why not.