Salt Lake City Law Firm

SCHMIDT LAW FIRM

Your health and safety are of upmost importance to us.  We are still open and operating during the COVID-19 Pandemic. We are taking new clients and continue to work on existing client cases. Please note, that due to the COVID-19 virus on a temporary basis we are waiving the initial consultation fees for any new prospective clients.  If you need to have contact our office, please be assured that we remain available via email, phone and/or video conference using ZOOM.  (If you desire to do a video conference, please download the ZOOM app https://zoom.us/download for your device you will using and set up a free account https://zoom.us/signup). We are able to do most of the legal work necessary for your case via electronic means. The Utah Courts do all of the filing via electronic filing and the despite having limited in person hearings, we are still able to accommodate moving forward with telephonic conferences and electronic filings. If you need or desire to come into our office, we also want to assure you that we have increased measures to ensure that our office is clean and sanitized. Before and after anyone comes into our office, we are sanitizing doors/door handles, light switches, tables, counters, furniture, railings, computers and all bathroom fixtures. We have sanitizer available for your use in our reception area, conference rooms and offices. Furthermore, our staff is being monitored for any symptoms they may develop that resemble those of the virus. We are set up so employees can work remotely from home and they will not be permitted to return to the office until they have been cleared of having the COVID-19 coronavirus.

We would ask if any of you begin to develop symptoms or are diagnosed with the virus and you have had in person contact with anyone in our office that you immediately make us aware so we may take additional precautions for other clients, our staff, and anyone we frequently come in contact.

UTAH COURTS

The Utah Supreme Court has declared that the Courts themselves are implementing its “Pandemic Response Plan.” This means only emergency and necessary hearings and matters will be held at the Courthouse.  These include: Emergency Temporary Restraining Orders; Protective Orders; and any criminal matters which require immediately due process such as arraignments following arrests. This could mean that any hearing or trial currently scheduled before the Court commencing Monday, March 16, 2020 could be cancelled, postponed or set for a telephonic conference. If you have a hearing scheduled in March, we will be contacting you on how the Court will be handling your case. I assure you that once we know anything about your case, we will immediately notify you as to what is happening and how best to keep your case on track.  This could include trying to mediate the case or doing a settlement conference with the other party/attorney. Please be assured that we will be working diligently to ensure that your case issues are addressed as efficiently as possible.  At the present time, we are not certain how or if the above measures will impact the time it takes for the Judiciary to review and sign documents. Hopefully, since the judicial system is already set up for electronic filing, getting orders ruled upon and/or signed won’t be significantly delayed.

MEDIATION

If you need or your case is set for a mediation, that can still occur. If the mediation is set at the Courthouse, it can be moved to a private office location.  If you are uncomfortable with attending mediation in person, as indicated above, we can still proceed with you being available via telephone or video conference. However, if the mediator or the other party are uncomfortable proceeding with the mediation due to the issues regarding the COVID-19 virus, it is likely that we will need to reschedule to a later date.

Please be assured that our office will be working diligently to ensure that we are able to continue to move your case in a direction of problem solving and final resolution.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please keep you and your loved ones safe.

Sincerely – Stacey Schmidt

Schmidt Law Firm