14 March 2020

Unpaid Work



From the OECD via the New York Times.

2 comments:

neo said...

how is this coronavirus affecting your work as a lawyer, as some courts are shutting down

hypothetically speaking, if all us courts closed down due to coronavirus for an indeterminate length of time, how will that affect lawyers and current law students and law schools?

andrew said...

I am less affected than most. Most of my work can be done from home and by telephone if necessary. Some hearings are going from fully in person to entirely telephone based or with some witnesses testifying by telephone.

Evidentiary hearings, and particularly jury trials, are more affected, but those are quite infrequent. The biggest potential impact is in criminal jury trials which can't be continued too far due to speedy trial requirements. Civil trials on non-emergency matters are mostly just being postponed.

Few courts are truly shutting down, they just aren't having people come in person to them.

Law students and law schools, like all K-college, is shifting to online. Few profs are skilled in doing that but there isn't any intrinsic reason that law can be taught and learned mostly online.