Zoom Court Is Changing How Justice Is Served

In july, Michelle Rick, then a circuit-court judge in two Michigan counties, tweeted cheerily about a divorce she’d recently finalized. The participants had appeared in court via their smartphones. “He was on the road & parked his car to attend; she video-tx’d from her work breakroom,” the judge wrote. They were done in 15 minutes—faster than the proverbial Reno divorce.

Last spring, as COVID‑19 infections surged for the first time, many American courts curtailed their operations. As case backlogs swelled, courts moved online, at a speed that has amazed—and sometimes...