Legal virtual proceedings and challenges it brings for lawyers

It’s been two years since the world entered a new reality of virtual or mixed work. As the global pandemic has just collapsed, most of the legal procedures were placed on hold or delayed. And now it’s obvious that courts are thriving to make up for the time they lost waiting for the things to settle. One of the ways to adapt the justice system is to implement virtual proceedings. 

As soon as it was possible, courts across the world started conducting essential proceedings through the video. And as time passed, public health authorities have suggested considering a remote proceeding as an optional perman­ent feature of the justice system. 

The virtual proceeding has some evident benefits, such as actually being able to run cases and practice law. Also, it’s much cheaper and faster to conduct. Thus, a larger amount of people can access and afford fair proceedings. At the same time, there’s a list of concerns too. 

When it comes to any type of mediation that could prevent a court hearing, the positive aspect is that virtual mediation can provide the widest choice of mediator, as the person could join from wherever they want. But keep in mind that talking to the computer provides much less emotional appeal than it could be in the presential meeting.  

If talking about the arbitrating process, probably the greatest advantage of presential hearing to the virtual is the witnesses’ testimonies. It’s much harder to assess the credibility of witnesses online. Besides, cross-examination which is sometimes crucial to the whole process is hardly applied online, as it requires eye–contact, as well as body language scanning.  

These are just a few examples. Some attorneys also express their concerns regarding reduced attentiveness of jurors, the twisted emotional impact of exhibits when they are presented in electronic format, or greater difficulty to select and connect with jurors. 

Though society slowly returns to resuming in-person activities and events, will the same happen in courts? It depends on every court and even case. As the jurors often say, “this is your process”. So probably every case will be unique, depending on what the parties agree on after a careful process of considering what is better for them. The tendencies show that most people still prefer the in-person over the virtual one. But even the idea and possibility of choice itself say a lot about the shift from pre-pandemic practice.