The 2017 McMillan Scholarship Award Winner

Jose Lezcano and Jim McMillan

Jose Lezcano, the Judicial Branch IT Director in Puerto Rico was honored with the McMillan Scholarship at the CTC 2017 Conference for his technology leadership.  More below:

---

I had the wonderful honor of meeting Jose at the CTC conference last week.  The award recognizes the great advances that the Puerto Rico Judiciary have made in the development and implementation of IT for the public and the court’s users.  The systems include:

• Videoconferencing that connects the courts to three small islands that do not have sufficient population to justify a full-time court operation.  Judge travel to these islands each month.  But the video conferencing system utilizing desktop technology was installed in the Municipal Courtroom at the Judicial Center of Fajardo on the island of Vieques for less than $200.  This allows hearings and other proceedings to be held as needed.
  
• Office 365 Cloud technology implementation.  Starting in February 2017 and finishing this month the software extends the video conferencing capability throughout the court system.  It also creates a more flexible and cost-efficient office system for all judges and staff.
  
• A Case Management System “re-write” using Microsoft .NET framework.  The new system simplified the previous user interface by aligning it with the dynamics between the judges and other users.
  
• Analysis - Under Mr. Lezcano leadership, the IT Department acquire a new statistical tool call QlikSense.  As of today, several departments are working with the development of the Project Plan to implement the tool successfully on JPD and Statistical Office in autumn 2017.  With this acquisition, the IT Department pursue what OCA can benefit from a tool that allows them to answer some basic questions like: How do we know what’s going on in our courts?  Also, what needs to be done about it sooner rather than later? How can we maximize our resources with on time information of our courts and case management?

We again congratulate Mr. Lezcano and look forward to learning about his future work with the Puerto Rico Judiciary.

On a different but related note, a conference highlights page has been posted at http://www.ctc2017.org/If-you-werent-at-CTC-2017.aspx  You missed a good one if you didn't attend.  So make plans for E-Courts in December 2018 and the next CTC in New Orleans in September 2019.