Practice Makes Perfect When It Comes To Virtual Hearings

April 2020 – Law360 interviewed Chaffetz Lindsey partners Peter Chaffetz and Yasmine Lahlou for an article titled “Practice Makes Perfect When It Comes To Virtual Hearings,” published on April 15, 2020.  The article takes a look at how widespread shelter-in-place orders enacted to slow the spread of COVID-19 have forced many technophobic arbitration lawyers into conducting virtual hearings, but practice and assistance from institutions can help even the least tech-savvy get comfortable with this new normal.

“I think if we’d had to decide in advance whether to do a two-week hearing about a $500 million dispute by video, I’m not sure we would have decided that with a positive answer,” said Chaffetz Lindsey partner Yasmine Lahlou. “But if you’ve had a week of hearings, and you have the potential of losing the momentum … and you think you’ve done well with your witnesses, and it makes so much more sense to continue with the experts and to continue with the same dynamic, then you do it. It was a somewhat unique set of circumstances.”

Learn more about their experience and how the arbitration institutions and lawyers are adapting to the new era of holding video hearings. View the entire article by Caroline Simson on Law360’s website. A subscription may be required.

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