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Courts are working (where I am)

nengooseus's picture

Submitted by nengooseus on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 9:01am

My lawyer just posted on Facebook that the courts are closed, but judges and clerks are working.  As long as the paperwork is done and "agreed" by the parties, there shouldn't be delays.  If not, we must be prepared to wait.

I know we have a few people here waiting for a judge to sign off on something, so I thought I would offer a sliver of hope!

Comments

hereiam's picture

Submitted by hereiam on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 9:35am

Yes, I think most are cancelling non-essential, in person proceedings, but things that just need signatures should still be able to get processed.

WalkOnBy's picture

Submitted by WalkOnBy on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 2:48pm

I work for the federal court in my state.  Each district is making this up as we go along.

For my district?   Our Chief Judge has suspended all in-court hearings in both civil and criminal cases, except for the very few things (criminal initial appearances, detention hearings, arraignments, bond reviews, sentencings) that must be done in person.  Motion arguments will be done on the briefs, in both civil and criminal.  Some judges are doing arguments via phone conference, but that's just super difficult to do when everyone is on a freaking cell phone. 

Our Clerk's Office is open, but people have to make appointments to come inside.  We are not allowing more than one person in the Clerk's Office at a time.  Lots and lots of Clorox wipes and many cans of Lysol...

Most of us on the court side are working from home, as are some probation officers, pretrial services folks, but the Marshals are still there as are the Court Security Officers.  Naturalization ceremonies have been cancelled for the foreseeable future.  

It's nuts....