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Rachel Reynolds Testifies Before Washington State Senate on Use of Remote Technology in Courtrooms

Seattle, Wash. (December 7, 2020) - Seattle Partner Rachel Tallon Reynolds recently testified before the Washington State Senate Law & Justice Committee on Court Operations regarding how the use of remote technology during the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted jury trials and other court proceedings. Testifying in her capacity as the Immediate Past President of the Washington Defense Trial Lawyers (WDTL), Ms. Reynolds ultimately urged the Committee to “be temperate” when creating rules concerning remote technology due to the potential drawbacks of using this technology for jury trials.

Ms. Reynolds first described that remote technology has been helpful during the pandemic in certain respects, noting, “The advent of technology has been very well accepted in term of hearings, depositions, remote mandatory arbitrations, and remote alternative dispute resolution. It has been more efficient, more cost effective, and there has been an opportunity for easier coordination.”

Next, however, Ms. Reynolds detailed significant potential drawbacks of using remote technology for jury trials, explaining that case law and other authority is unclear as to whether civil jury trials are constitutional when they are conducted in a remote manner. She also described the “very real” psychological phenomenon of “Zoom fatigue” during jury trials, as well as the lack of hard data concerning the efficacy of remote jury trials.

In addition, Ms. Reynolds emphasized that when preparing for trial during the pandemic, “[t]here are very real manifest challenges that all parties face,” including obtaining records from various government entities. “There is no need, when we can see the light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic, to force litigants into jury trials when they don’t have the information that a defendant needs to meaningfully defend themselves, or, on the plaintiff’s side, to meaningfully prove their case,” she testified.

In her concluding remarks, Ms. Reynolds summarized the opinion of the WDTL, stating, “While there have been technological innovations that have been beneficial to all litigants and I think the courts, and this has been an opportunity for all of us to innovate, we would urge that this body be temperate in looking for long-term solutions and not adopting technologies that haven’t been tested and that haven’t been proven efficient.”

Ms. Reynolds is a member of Lewis Brisbois' Toxic Tort & Environmental Litigation, Products Liability, Public Agency & Municipal Law, and National Trial Practices. An experienced first chair trial attorney, Ms. Reynolds prides herself on providing creative solutions to legal challenges. She recently obtained a defense verdict in one of the first jury trials to take place in Washington State since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

You can view Ms. Reynolds’ full testimony here (beginning at 1:28:21).

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