I didn’t think I’d have time to write a Facepalm for this month’s Museletter, but lo and behold, the Henrico Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court bench did it for me!
As of late, there have been so many complaints about attorneys disruptively using their cell phones in the courthouse that the bench was forced to issue a strongly worded eye-roll of a cell phone policy. “As judges, we understand the need for agency members and attorneys to have access to their phones for purposes of calendaring cases and communicating with their respective offices and other courts. However, we have received a significant number of complaints of attorneys and agency representatives using their phones to make voice or video calls in the hallway, playing games, and surfing the internet while in the public areas of the courthouse. That is not the purpose of allowing the use of phones.”
The Court goes on to say, “With regards to using your phone for personal texting, games, social media or otherwise surfing the internet, please only do so in the attorney workroom or refrain from doing so at all in the courthouse…. [T]he sounds of reels or phone calls is disruptive to the courthouse, and even if silent, when citizens observe a police officer, attorney or DSS worker using their phone to watch Instagram, it is difficult for us to use the explanation to the public that you are only allowed to have phones for professional reasons.” This is all while your average, mere mortal litigant or visitor is absolutely barred from having their cell phone in the courthouse at all. So for all you professional Candy Crushers and TikTok influencers, your day job of BEING AN ATTORNEY should probably come first. And apparently, some toddlers—I mean lawyers have even disrespected deputies trying to enforce these rules.
And this is why we can’t have nice things. Facepalm achieved.