Coronavirus Continues To Disrupt Court Proceedings
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, all New Jersey state court trials remain on hiatus. All are cancelled until further notice, except for ongoing trials. By order of the Chief Justice, all discovery deadlines are relaxed to permit the extension of discovery deadlines. For computation of the statute of limitations, March 16, 2020 to March 27, 2020 shall be deemed a legal holiday.
Specifically, the court’s website states that:
As of March 18, 2020 and until further notice, there are no in-person Superior Court proceedings (except for extremely limited emergent matters and certain ongoing trials). As many matters as possible (including case management conferences, motions, and hearings) will be handled by telephone or video conference.
It is not clear if arbitrations will proceed or not. Motion hearings will be telephonic. Case management conferences can be also conducted telephonically.
Depositions could proceed if conducted as virtual depositions. The court reporting agencies are offering such services.
Obviously, mediations will be impacted. IMEs will likely be cancelled.
Law offices seem to be generally continuing operations but primarily with at least the lawyers and paralegals working remotely. But, with no trials, no in person settlement conferences, no mediations, arbitrations as an unknown, this pandemic will create a bottleneck unless parties are able to settle cases on their own.
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