Generally, the answer would be no. ERISA is a federal law. That means that your case will be filed in a federal district court. Federal district courts are the trial courts for our federal system, and they operate by an electronic filing system; therefore, you do not even mail in most of your court filings. Instead, you simply file them online. Further, many types of ERISA cases do not even allow for a jury trial (e.g. ERISA disability insurance cases). Instead, they are decided “on the papers.” The likelihood you will need to appear in court is relatively small; this is the case for your attorneys as well. In other words, almost all of the work is done from the attorney’s office, wherever that might be, allowing you to hire experts in the field regardless of their base-office location. |
