By Jimmy Hoover

Law360 (April 8, 2020, 3:01 PM EDT) -- Litigants petitioning for U.S. Supreme Court review are seeking additional time to file their reply briefs, citing the massive disruptions the ongoing COVID-19 crisis has caused for client consultations and remote work.

The public health measures to contain coronavirus have kept lawyers out of their offices and away from clients, with many finding their time taken up with childcare duties rather than brief-writing. As a result, several attorneys have taken advantage of the Supreme Court's new practice of granting extension requests related to the pandemic.

On Wednesday, for instance, the country's collegiate and professional sports leagues asked the court to hold off on distributing their petition in a multimillion-dollar legal fight with a New Jersey racetrack. The petition was originally supposed to be sent around to the justices April 15 so they could consider it at their May 1 conference.

But the NCAA, NBA and other leagues asked the court to instead distribute the petition April 28 so the justices could decide whether to grant certiorari, or review, at their May 14 conference.

The sports leagues "are presently dealing with the significant impact on their operations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has complicated their ability to meaningfully confer with counsel on the certiorari-stage reply brief in this case," wrote their attorney, Paul Clement of Kirkland & Ellis LLP in a motion filed Wednesday. "The requested delay thus will permit petitioners to prepare a submission that will be most helpful to the court."

In mid-March, the Supreme Court said it would grant motions for extensions of time "as a matter of course" if the request is reasonable and has to do with "difficulties relating to COVID-19."

The court appears to be keeping its word and has granted coronavirus-related extension requests in several cases.

On Tuesday, the court agreed to push back the distribution of a petition from terror victims trying to hold Facebook liable for providing Hamas with a communications platform.

The victims' lawyer, University of Washington School of Law professor Eric Schnapper, said the state's governor shut down nonessential businesses shortly after Facebook filed its brief in opposition, which left him unable to go to his office on campus. Plus, federal and state officials have advised individuals of his age to "remain at home as much as possible," he said. "Preparation of the reply brief, under these conditions, will involve significant unavoidable delay," he said.

The court obliged a similar motion from Linear Controls Inc., which is defending an appeal to revive a race bias suit claiming it made black workers toil outside on a Gulf of Mexico oil rig while white colleagues enjoyed air conditioning.

The U.S. Solicitor General's Office filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiff and called the Fifth Circuit's ruling against him "startling." The court has now given Linear more time to file its supplemental brief responding to the government in light of, what Linear called, "the ongoing public health concerns relating to COVID-19."

Others have been more specific in their requests to the court: Colorado-based Assistant Federal Public Defender Josh Lee — a lawyer for a death penalty inmate — explained in his extension request that he is shouldering childcare duties while his spouse is working as a nurse at a local hospital.

Further, he said, his office is closed and "counsel cannot work as efficiently from home as he can from the office."

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown a wrench in the ongoing Supreme Court term. The court has indefinitely postponed its March and April argument sessions and must now reschedule 20 arguments before July if it wants to complete its work by summer recess.

--Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.

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