The Spokane Dependency Court developed the following resources for families, professionals, and judicial officers participating in virtual hearings. The court utilizes the Zoom platform and Personal Meeting ID numbers (PMI) to make hearings public.
Some of the court’s Zoom security settings include:
- Set up a waiting room for participant entry- including information for waiting parties
- It is impossible to record meetings or save chats
- Removed the password requirement for PMI meetings so the public can join hearings
- For participants joining by phone, their phone numbers are masked. If they are party to the hearing, host and co-hosts can rename them.
- Only hosts and co-hosts are able to chat, share a screen, or share files. Host assigns professionals/parties to be co-hosts if they need this functionality.
- At this time, Spokane is considering making parents co-hosts so that they can use the chat function with their attorneys.
Virtual Hearing Tools
- Attending-your-Dependency-hearing-Spokane-Word
- Attending-your-Dependency-Hearing-Spokane-pdf
- Courtroom-Professionals-Zoom-Instructions-Spokane
- Judicial-Officers-Zoom-Instructions-Spokane
Other courts are welcome to adopt the use of these tools and modify them to fit their local context.
Virtual Hearing Instructions – Spokane Dependency Court
