Welcome to the 50th installment of And Now a Word from the Panel, a column that "rides the circuit" with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation as it meets on a bimonthly basis.
Consistent with recent panel practice in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the panel's March 25 hearing session will be held remotely as a video teleconference from the panel's Washington, D.C., office via the Zoom meeting app, with the panel's reminder that:
The use of videoconference technology for presentation of oral argument is not normal Panel practice ... [and] [t]he Panel plans to return to its practice of in-person hearings when it becomes practicable to do so.
In honor of this column's jubilee edition, we revisit one of our favorite panel topics: the selection of an MDL venue. At the March hearing session, the panel will entertain competing arguments made by the parties in connection with a recent MDL petition as to why the MDL should be located in their respective home state.