Some Court Tech News and Notes – March 2019

https://www.neworleans.com/

This month we share some notes about CTC-2019, Connecticut Probate Court E-filing, a great blockchain article, transcription in Africa, text messaging programs, and some both bad and interesting England & Wales Court IT news. 

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CTC-2019 Education Session Proposals Due Today

Just a quick note that if you wish to submit an educational program proposal for the conference later this year you need to do it today.  Click here to load the online submission form.

Connecticut Probate Court Selects TurboCourt E-Filing

Via press release:

“The Connecticut Probate Court Administration has completed a multi-vendor procurement that resulted in the selection of TurboCourt’s award-winning, next-generation statewide deployment of electronic filing for all Connecticut probate courts and filers.

Connecticut’s 54 Probate Courts process a wide range of case types including conservatorships, guardianships, estates and trusts, psychiatric commitments, and name changes. The TurboCourt Intelligent Filing and Online Dispute Resolution Platform will enable Connecticut Probate Courts to increase both access to court services for filers and case processing efficiency.”

Some Blockchain Food for Thought

Wired Magazine published an opinion article titled “There’s No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology” on February 6, 2019.  The article discusses the concept of public and not private blockchain systems.  In my opinion, we in the courts really can benefit from private blockchain signing but that is for another time.

The interesting part of the article discusses concepts of trust which we also often write about here.  The article well states:

“Trust is essential to society. As a species, humans are wired to trust one another. Society can’t function without trust, and the fact that we mostly don’t even think about it is a measure of how well trust works. 

The word “trust” is loaded with many meanings. There’s personal and intimate trust. When we say we trust a friend, we mean that we trust their intentions and know that those intentions will inform their actions. There’s also the less intimate, less personal trust—we might not know someone personally, or know their motivations, but we can trust their future actions. Blockchain enables this sort of trust: We don’t know any bitcoin miners, for example, but we trust that they will follow the mining protocol and make the whole system work.”

So, this is why blockchain is interesting and useful to the legal and court community.  But, the article continues with a rich and detailed discussion of how technology has been used and has failed in the real world.  It is worth a read.

Youth Transcription Jobs in Africa and Text Reminder Legislative Programs

Our friend Bill Raftery (editor of Gavel-to-Gavel blog) shared a new program in Kenya.  An article on Parentsafrica.com writes:

“The youth are set to get transcription jobs to capture court proceedings after the Ministry of ICT and Judiciary entered into a partnership to migrate from manual records.

Under the AJIRA platform, the youth will be sourced to transcribe the court proceedings which will create job opportunities for them as well as boost efficiency in the court proceedings.”

In addition, Bill writes that "Three State Legislatures are considering programs to notify defendants by text message of upcoming court hearings". The year of text reminders continues.

News from the English Courts

Two things.  First there have be a couple of computer systems failures recently.  This article from our favorite UK tech website describes the problem.

And of more interest, an online book (the best description I can provide) by Joshua Rozenberg titled “The Online Courts: will IT work?” was posted.  It is an in-depth look at the automation efforts of the England and Wales courts with some discussion of automation in British Columbia and the US.  I think it provides a tremendous amount of information on a huge program.  I am still digesting it and will have additional comments on this later.  It is well worth a read and certainly worth a bookmark on your browser.