COVID-19

The courts have been dramatically impacted regarding hearing, trials and other matters. They are beginning to use telephone hearings in certain circumstances and some just common-sense protocols regarding the best way to prepare for a telephone hearing.  If you do have a landline that is better than a cell phone.  It has less issues in terms of sounds quality for the court.  Whether you are using a landline or a cell phone, try not to use a speaker phone as it has more issues with the participants being able to hear.  If you have headset availability to use that would be ideal if you have a feature to be able to mute your line when you are not talking back is also appropriate. If you are using a mobile phone try and be as cognizant as possible about the fact that mobile phone services draw static and may impact the conference call and you want to avoid moving while speaking to minimize those issues.

In addition, it is easy enough to say, but calling from a quieter setting is the best as background noise can be heard in court and can make things confusing. Understand that you may need to say your name and you should be in a listening mode that unless the courts asking for you to say something, it can get confusing with a lot of people discussing the case. So if you are testifying or the court is asking you a question, certainly answer but try and be cognizant and most of the time the judge and the attorneys will be doing most of the speaking and most of the questions will be directed to you from the court or from one of the attorney’s.

When I have had experiences with phone conference calls in courts, they can always be a little bit unique in terms of it is hard to tell when someone is starting and stopping and to use as much common sense as possible.