The Covid-19 Pandemic has been an opportunity to re-examine how courts and legal business is done. We have written many articles about new ideas and experiments in recent months. Now it is time to think long-term about courthouses themselves as they are the second biggest expense after the judges and staff? Let’s begin:
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First, Michigan Lawyer’s Weekly posted an article that reported the use of virtual courtrooms in their state had already exceeded 500,000 hours of Zoom meetings. That means that 500,000 hours of courtroom and courthouse facilities use were not necessary.
Second, an article on Medium.com says that we are now entering the era of “hygiene theater". They write that “companies feel we have to address the root fear” of bringing people together in their offices. This is true for courts, both staff and users. Can the courts and government afford to make the kinds of environmental investments necessary to keep everyone safe?
Third, courthouses are often older facilities. I have been to locations were there air handling and electrical systems are woefully out of date. And many are environmentally hazardous to people containing mold and asbestos.
Fourth, courthouse location. Courthouses are most often at the center of the city. Thus, they not only occupy the most expensive real estate in the region, but they also are hard to access as traffic and older streets slow travel time and once you arrive, the parking is expensive. The one positive note in most localities is the availability of public transportation. But note that public transportation normally syncs with the morning and evening commute times. Returning home in the middle of the day is often not easy.
Fifth, courthouses are very expensive paper storage warehouses. I had the privilege of helping to design the replacement courthouse in the historic center of Charleston, South Carolina many years ago. The historic courthouse (shown above was renovated and still in use) was damaged in a hurricane in the 1990’s. But it was undersized. If you have been to historic Charleston, you know that it is a beautiful area. It also has building restrictions. First, they cannot make a larger courthouse by digging down to make basements as the land is below sea level. Second, buildings are height restricted in keeping with the historic district. So even in the 1990’s it was an easy decision to move all court documents in an electronic document management system. Charleston then took advantage of that transition by distributing the clerk’s office to three additional locations around the county.
And sixth and most important, many courtrooms are designed to hold many people since they are summoned and appear at the same time. A traditional schedule is to summon everyone to appear at 9:00 in the morning. This overloads security and elevators. It crowds the courtrooms. And it means that people who will not be heard until 11:00 or 11:30 have now wasted their morning.
Recognizing these issues let us look at possible solutions before we get to the discussion of online services.
What about the need for large courtrooms? The reasons told to me are to hold the crowd called to appear at court usually on Monday at 9:00. And, the courtroom is used for large voir dire jury selection hearings and ceremonies such as bar and citizen inductions.
For appearances, the answer is to call what you need when you need it. If a court can hold ten hearings per hour, then call that number of cases. Do not call thirty hearings to fill the morning. It just wastes everyone’s time. And now we can have the option of virtual hearings to supplement the physical. I can envision courts creating a hybrid calendar that would hold the virtual hearings in reserve to fill in if the physical hearing does not occur.
Next, I would suggest as an alternative to the large courtroom, a courthouse theater that can be used for the large bar and citizen events, and even be able to be rented out to generate revenue for the court. A first-floor theater could allow security to check the attendees and easily enter the facility.
Same for jurors when needed. The theater can be used as a large voir dire courtroom with the addition of a couple of tables for the judge and clerks (with their laptops and Wi-Fi connections) and for the attorneys. When complete the trial can either continue or move to their assigned courtroom. And of course, a theater could allow for social distancing.
Standard courtrooms should be right-sized to do rolling one-hour sized hearings and trials. They should not serve as public waiting areas. Those can be located elsewhere in the courthouse and be large enough for social distancing, perhaps outdoor (secure) space, and have HEPA filtered HVAC services.
The standard courtrooms will need screens. Screens for remote participants, screens for data, and screens for the litigants. What they may not need are screens for the public and press. They can watch remotely out of the courthouse, in workrooms assigned to them, or even on their phones.
Clerk’s offices do not need to store paper any longer with e-filing and electronic document management systems. They need to be able to give access to help the self-represented that may need language translation assistance or meet with public interest service attorneys. Public workstations with scanners can be provided. Besides data entry and organizational work, clerk’s offices may look more like modern libraries.
Law libraries in the courthouse will hold very few volumes of books. These transitions have mostly already occurred and these facilities can become locations for attorney-client meetings and serve as self-service centers.
Overall, HEPA filtered HVAC, traffic control, UV light cleaning and chambers, courtroom, staff and public access screens become dominant design themes.
Access to the courthouse and clerk’s offices do not have to be restricted now to the large central courthouses. Community local courthouses can supplement, be less costly, and still have most if not all the services the central facilities have had.
Security can be enhanced by the reduction in persons coming to the courthouse each day. And if distributed, the number of persons is split between multiple locations such as Charleston County, South Carolina.
In conclusion, courthouses are the physical manifestation of equal access to the law. This is the ideal. In practice, they can be intimidating displays of government power. We need to adjust our thinking and take the lessons from the pandemic for remote access and apply them in planning the next generation of courthouses.
And by the way, for more about my colleagues that work on courthouses full-time, and a lot of reference material, see: https://www.ncsc.org/services-and-experts/areas-of-expertise/facilities-planning
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