Plaintiffs consider bench trials to combat litigation backlog This week, Managing IP spoke to four in-house counsel, two private practice lawyers and one judge to reveal how courts and lawyers in the US are managing the COVID-induced trial holdup. When courts shut down in response to COVID last year, lawyers and judges stepped up their game and learned the ropes of remote litigation. But most jury trials could not be conducted remotely in 2020 and courts built up a significant backlog of intellectual property cases (and other matters), which has continued to be a source of frustration for in-house counsel managing litigation this year.