Telephonic Court Appearances Reduce Litigation Costs the Easy Way

Each day throughout the United States, thousands
of lawyers travel to state, bankruptcy and federal district courts to
make brief appearances that may not actually require their physical
presence in the courtroom. There are countless case-management, status

and trial-setting conferences, show-cause hearings and motions that
easily fall into this category. The travel costs associated with such
appearances are staggering, even if the lawyer is only a few miles from

the courthouse. At today's high hourly rates, even 30 minutes of lawyer

travel time that can be avoided means substantial savings to
cost-conscious clients. </p><p>Many judges and court administrators have
recognized that permitting telephonic court appearances in appropriate

circumstances offers an easy, efficient way save thousands of hours
and millions of dollars in litigation costs. While the concept of
appearing telephonically has been around for decades, it has only been

in the last 10 years that organized methods for conducting telephonic
appearances have been widely implemented to make the process uniform
and the quality of the calls sufficiently consistent so as to permit
judges to conduct their business without disruption. This process has
been greatly aided by the creation of public/private partnerships that

call for "turn-key" systems to be installed and operated by
private enterprise, thus allowing cash-strapped courts to utilize
state-of-the-art equipment and proven scheduling methods at no cost to
the court. In a classic "win-win" scenario, lawyers save
time and personal wear and tear, clients save substantial fees for
unnecessary travel time, and courts efficiently help to reduce not
only the cost of litigation, but also vehicles on the road and the
resulting air pollution. There are several keys to establishing an
effective telephonic court-appearance program, including making certain
that no judge is required to substantially modify the method by which
he or she conducts business, and utilizing a uniform approach
throughout a jurisdiction so that lawyers can easily learn and follow
the approach. </p><p><b>Seven Tips for a Successful Telephonic Court
Appearance Program</b></p><p> <i>1. Install and Utilize Appropriate
Technology.</i> One of the reasons that prior attempts at
telephonic-appearance programs failed is that courts did not utilize
appropriate technology. Using the wrong speakerphone equipment usually

results in "voice clipping," which is a major irritant to
judges who are trying to work through a busy calendar. Also,
attempting to merge a variety of different conferencing technologies
usually results in inconsistent call quality, another major impediment

to judicial satisfaction. Successful programs require the following
technology: </p><blockquote> <p>• appropriate, full-duplex
speakerphone equipment properly placed in the courtroom and/or
chambers;<br> • electronically amplified audio conferencing
with substantial port capacity to permit multiple callers and
multiple cases to be simultaneously routed through one central
electronic phone "pipe." </p></blockquote><p>These
requirements are particularly important in courts that have calendar
calls with multiple cases scheduled for the same time. <i>Ad hoc</i>

methods of telephonic appearance cannot work in this situation because

only one call at a time can get through on the court's telephone line.

Using appropriate electronically amplified commercial audio
conferencing not only insures the consistent quality of the call, but
also offers the benefit of one central electronic "pipe" in
which all callers on all cases can be brought together (just as they are

brought together in the courtroom), and then individual case business
can be handled while others wait for their cases to be called. For
matters requiring privacy, subconferencing is available off of the
main electronic "pipe." Top-quality, full-duplex
speakerphone equipment is readily available and solves the problem of
voice clipping. Generally the equipment is hooked up to a stand-alone
phone line so it does not tie up any of the court's existing phone
lines. In the public/private partnerships mentioned above, the private

enterprise supplies all required teleconferencing, speakerphone
equipment and phone lines at no cost to the court, and charges and
collects a reasonable fee from the lawyers who use the service. In
addition, the private enterprise does all the scheduling for the
telephonic court appearances using methods pre-approved by the court.
</p><p><i>2. Allow Each Judge to Determine the Types of Proceedings for
which a Telephonic Appearance Will Be Permitted.</i> An essential
element of success is to make certain that each judge maintains full
authority over which types of proceedings can and will be suitable for

telephonic appearance. Each judge is a little different and runs
his/her courtroom in accordance with individual preferences. A properly

established and administered program can be tailored to the needs of
each judge. Appropriate interviewing of the judge and courtroom staff
at the front end makes this possible. </p><p><i>3. Telephonic Court
Appearances Should Be Made a Part of Each Judge's Regular
Calendar.</i> In order for a telephonic court appearance program to
flourish, it must be voluntary and permit attorneys to have full
discretion as to when to use it (assuming that the proceeding type is
one for which the judge has pre-approved telephonic appearance). If
lawyers must be concerned about a special time for telephonic
appearances, the needed flexibility is lost. When telephonic
appearances are made a part of the regular calendar and are heard just
as in-person appearances, it permits the lawyers to more easily make
their decision. From the judge's perspective, the calendar call is the

calendar call, and so long as the equipment and conferencing
techniques are appropriate, it should make no difference if the
attorney is on the phone or in person. </p><p><i>4. Scheduling and Billing
Matters Must Be Handled by Someone Other than Busy Courtroom
Staff.</i> Courtroom clerks and assistants are already busy enough.
Accordingly, the job of scheduling the attorneys for their telephonic
court appearances and charging and collecting fees from them should
not be assigned to courtroom staff. In the public/private
partnerships, all of those tasks are handled by the private
enterprise, with pre-arranged methods for timely delivering to court
staff appropriate lists of those attorneys who will be appearing
telephonically. If done internally by the court, it must be done by
someone other than the courtroom staff. </p><p><i>5. A Telephonic Court
Appearance Is More than a Conference Call with the Court.</i> While
many telephone systems allow for limited conferencing, they do not
allow for the type of wide-scale participation that is often required
by courts. Similarly, while any teleconference service can connect a
"conference call," most generally lack the procedures and
background necessary to recognize that there is a world of difference
between a generic "conference call" and a court appearance
conducted by telephone. Likewise, a court's reliance upon internal or
generic conferencing is usually of limited success. Coordination is
the key, and coordination is something cash-strapped and understaffed
courts often prefer to avoid. </p><p><i>6. If the Majority of Attorneys
Still Appear in Person, Your Court-Run Telephonic Appearance Can Be
Improved.</i> Busy judges, administrators and clerks often believe
that since they periodically allow telephonic appearances when
requested, they have a fully functional telephonic appearance program
and there is nothing more to do. Nothing could be further from the
truth. The cost and time saving benefits that are the goal of the
court are only maximized when the greatest number of attorneys who can

reasonably appear telephonically do so. An underutilized program does
nothing to help the court reduce the cost of litigation. The goal
should be to have as many attorneys as possible appear telephonically on

the types of proceedings the court deems appropriate. </p><p><i>7. Do Not
Delay for Fear of Installation Cost or Headache. </i>Unlike many
technology-related initiatives, telephonic court-appearance programs can

be operational in a few weeks or even days. There is no reliance upon
the court's facilities unless the court prefers to use existing court
lines. The phones plug into standard power and an analog phone line
provided by the private enterprise. Months of planning, analysis and
review simply are not required. The benefits of a fully functional
telephonic appearance program can be attained before the average
technology initiative can even be outlined, let alone implemented.

</p><p><b>Conclusion</b></p><p> Implementing a successful telephonic court
appearance program can be as simple as one phone call to a private
company that specializes in such programs. In that manner, no court
time or money is spent "reinventing a wheel" that has
already been proven to be successful. Converting short court appearances

from "in-person" to "telephonic" is a great way to

dramatically reduce the cost of litigation in your jurisdiction. </p>