The legal system is the unsung hero of the commercial real estate industry, especially in times of strife. Landlord-tenant disputes, foreclosures, contract disputes, tax appeals, partnership settlements — the everyday procedure of the way capital moves through the U.S. real estate industry relies on a functioning judiciary. But just as the coronavirus pandemic has upended the way much of society functions, it has wreaked havoc on the courts. Many courts stopped functioning entirely for months, before adopting new technologies to move cases through, albeit fewer than before. All the while, cases have been piling up, leading to a backlog experts fear will take years to work through. “Once that window opens up, it's just going to be mayhem,” said William Mack, a New York-based commercial litigator and arbitrator with Davidoff Hutcher & Citron. Commercial real estate, facing potentially more litigation than ever once eviction and foreclosure moratoriums are lifted, is already feeling the impacts, either in slower resolutions or far more out-of-court settlements than before. 
Over the past year, cases have taken nearly twice as long to make their way through the judicial system. Between 2019 and 2020, the median number of months that it took U.S. District Court judges to hear and terminate cases from filing to pretrial jumped from 14 to 27 months,…  Read the full story here. | 
