One
thing
litigators
know
all
too
well
is
that
most
of
the
time
spent
in
a
courthouse
is
not
spent
on
legal
tasks.
Rather,
lawyers
usually
need
to
wait
for
their
case
to
be
called,
and
the
time
they
spend
in
front
of
a
judge
or
other
court
officer
can
be
rather
limited
compared
to
the
time
they
spend
in
court.
This
is
frustrating,
since
lawyers
could
be
doing
other
activities
rather
than
waiting
in
court,
and
clients
probably
wish
they
did
not
need
to
pay
lawyers
to
sit
idly
around
a
courthouse.
However,
courts
can
manage
their
affairs
in
certain
ways
to
reduce
the
time
lawyers
waste
in
court.
Before
the
COVID-19
pandemic,
it
was
common
for
courts
in
a
jurisdiction
in
which
I
practice
to
schedule
numerous
matters
to
be
heard
at
a
particular
date
and
time.
Dozens
of
lawyers
might
arrive
at
court
for
a
scheduled
9:30
a.m.
appearance
even
though
the
court
could
only
take
the
cases
one
at
a
time.
To
some
extent,
this
makes
sense,
since
people
might
show
up
to
court
a
little
late,
and
the
court
could
hear
cases
in
which
all
of
the
attorneys
were
present
before
other
matters
were
ready
to
be
called.
However,
other
lawyers
wasted
time
waiting
around
since
court
officers
can
only
hear
a
select
number
of
cases
at
a
time.
During
the
COVID-19
pandemic,
this
phenomenon
largely
disappeared.
Courts
usually
scheduled
matters
for
discrete
times,
typically
at
hour
or
half-hour
increments.
Since
people
simply
needed
to
log
into
Zoom
at
a
scheduled
time
rather
than
appear
in
person,
attorneys
showing
up
late
was
rarely
an
issue.
In
this
situation,
attorneys
and
courts
did
not
waste
time
waiting
around
since
there
was
a
set
time
block
to
discuss
matters.
Only
once
did
I
see
a
court
schedule
dozens
of
matters
at
the
same
time
for
Zoom
appearances,
requiring
attorneys
to
wait
while
cases
were
called
into
separate
Zoom
rooms
one
at
a
time.
Since
all
of
us
were
at
home
or
in
our
offices
logging
into
Zoom,
not
much
time
was
wasted,
since
everyone
could
work
on
other
tasks
while
waiting.
However,
parties
waste
the
least
time
when
courts
schedule
specific
periods
to
conduct
court
hearings
so
no
one
has
to
wait
around.
Now
that
remote
proceedings
are
mostly
a
thing
of
the
past
for
many
courts,
judicial
proceedings
are
being
conducted
in
a
similar
way
to
before
COVID-19.
Several
times
this
year,
I
appeared
on
cases
that
were
calendared
for
the
same
time
as
dozens
of
other
cases,
requiring
all
of
the
lawyers
to
wait
in
court
for
hours
while
court
staff
managed
all
of
the
cases
that
had
been
scheduled
for
that
date
and
time.
However,
courts
should
learn
the
lesson
of
the
COVID-19
pandemic,
and
implement
practices
that
reduce
time
wastage.
Many
courts
can
schedule
matters
for
discrete
times
rather
than
order
dozens
of
lawyers
to
show
up
on
a
given
morning
and
just
take
the
cases
one
by
one
as
the
lawyers
fully
appear
on
a
matter.
Perhaps,
for
some
reason
—
and
I
would
appreciate
someone
explaining
the
reasoning,
if
they
know
it
—
courts
prefer
to
schedule
matters
en
masse.
Maybe
it
is
a
bigger
administrative
challenge
to
schedule
matters
as
discrete
units
rather
than
just
tell
a
collection
of
lawyers
on
various
cases
to
appear
in
court
on
a
given
morning.
However,
courts
should
consider
scheduling
matters
for
particular
periods
so
that
lawyers
waste
less
time
in
court.
Jordan
Rothman
is
a
partner
of
The
Rothman
Law
Firm,
a
full-service
New
York
and
New
Jersey
law
firm.
He
is
also
the
founder
of
Student
Debt
Diaries,
a
website
discussing
how
he
paid
off
his
student
loans.
You
can
reach
Jordan
through
email
at
[email protected].