Fifth DCA Embraces Remote Operations, Technology After Pandemic Success

Fifth District Court of Appeal

Fifth District Court of Appeal The Fifth District Court of Appeal (DCA) has continued to maintain operations as before the pandemic, just remotely. All oral arguments were conducted remotely through communications media technology, which proved very successful and saved the Fifth DCA a significant amount of money and time. Additionally, the Fifth DCA had previously worked to ensure that a majority of its judges and staff had laptop computers, which proved to be very beneficial for staff who were required to work from home. The Fifth DCA will continue to be a fully electronic court and will likely maintain its remote oral arguments. This allowed the Court to be prepared for future pandemics or any disruptive event that could take place in the future. The pandemic also brought on new and creative approaches to court operations, such as virtual judicial assistant training for newly hired judicial assistants, which the court will continue to use moving forward. Another major takeaway was the need to upgrade the current network infrastructure to ensure all court functions are able to be performed remotely during disruptive events. Overall, the Fifth DCA’s experience with the COVID-19 pandemic allowed it to learn to be flexible in how the court is operated and ensure it is ready to respond to any event that may arise.