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Joshua M. Bowman quoted in Bisnow on the backlog of commercial real estate cases in the courts due to the COVID-19 pandemic

April 15, 2021

Joshua M. Bowman, chair of the firm’s Hospitality Practice Group, was quoted in a Bisnow article on April 12, 2021. The article, “Real Estate Facing ‘Mayhem’ In The Courts As Legal Backlog Balloons,” details how the COVID-19 pandemic has “wreaked havoc on the courts,” causing slower resolutions and far more out-of-court settlements in commercial real estate litigation than before.

Read the full article at bisnow.com (subscriber content).

From the article:

“‘If you’re trying to get a trial at all, it’s taking longer than it was before Covid, and if you want a jury trial, it’s even slower,’ said Joshua Bowman, a partner who heads up the hospitality practice at Boston-based law firm Sherin and Logden.

Before the pandemic, Bowman said getting to trial with a commercial lawsuit would rarely take much longer than a year. ‘With Covid, you’re talking years.’

…’When they get to the end of this Covid period, which, knock on wood, there will be an end sometime in 2021, landlords are going to be wanting to go back to full rent,’ Bowman said. ‘I think landlords and tenants have been kicking the can down the road, knowingly. Even the lenders have been kicking the can down the road.'”