This and That in Court Technology – Late February 2016

A lot of news to share in this edition of our regular roundup of news and events.  We learned about Bots in the UK Courts, a new NCSC Report on Body Worn Cameras and the Courts, an Court Technology Director job opening in Seattle, Washington, Ravel Law judicial analytic services expansion, CenturyLink's new governmental cloud service, Microsoft "Plumbago", Pennsylvania Courts online payment system performance for 2015, and what the deal is with Windows 10 "telemetry" reporting.

Status of State Court E-Filing – January, 2016

Last week I was asked about the status of E-filing in the state courts. Below is the compilation of information and project website links for the states and territories that I could find in January, 2016.

An Interview with TestNotice’s John Coggeshall

From time to time we here at the CTB want to make our readers aware of new products and services. In this post we talk with John Coggeshall, Co-Founder of TestNotice that provides notification services for drug and problem solving courts.  The service also has other potential uses.

Cloud Data Security and Encryption

Secret decoder ring

Last week I saw an article about Microsoft’s new secure cloud network connection tool for government called ExpressRoute.  So that got me thinking...

Ms. Audrey Jun Receives First McMillan Award

At CTC-2015, Ms. Audrey Jun from Courthouse Libraries BC (see bio below) received the first James E. McMillan Award (McMillan Award) for Innovation in Court Technology for their Clicklaw system.  An extract from her submission is shown below.  A full version of her paper is also available by clicking here.

No Power? Some Ideas and Strategies to Consider

Morgan County, WV Courthouse Power

I suppose that the 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina has me thinking about strategies for keeping the courthouse open.  In other words…”Plan B”.  And since, as you know, computers don’t work very well without some kind of “juice”, we will discuss aspects of electrical power.

Cloud Backup

Former Intel CEO Andy Grove titled his 1999 book “Only the Paranoid Survive” which provides a good motto for thinking about protecting your personal and court data.  One potential solution that we will discuss in this article is backing your data up to “the cloud”.

CTC 2015 Keynote - The Innovation Imperative

CTC’s keynote speaker will be Mark Britton, Founder and CEO of Avvo, the world's largest community for legal guidance and services. Britton's keynote, which will open CTC 2015 on Tuesday morning, September 22, 2015 will address "The Innovation Imperative." Britton will argue how the justice system can more effectively embrace innovation. Britton will explore how innovation has transformed services in many other industries—medical, transportation, food, and travel—and says it's time for the justice system step up its pace and develop systems that foster innovation. You won't want to miss this inspiring and motivating opening session that will set the tone for three great days of learning and networking.

Smart Forms – Helping the Self-Represented, Helping the Courts

One of the things that we teach here at the NCSC is that court internet web services need to be oriented to the user’s requirements. And, in turn control how information is presented for adjudication. Smart Forms provide one successful approach to address this need.

File Hosting Services and E-Filing

Clouds over Arusha, Tanzania

Many do not know that the LegalXML Electronic Court Filing (ECF) standard allows for “links” to be submitted.  We discuss below:

Cloud Based Adobe Connect Integration with EchoSign

Courts looking for a combined video and electronic signature solution for warrants and similar communications can now look to Adobe for a possible solution.

This and That in Court Tech – October, 2014

This month’s news and notes from the varied world of technology in the courts, legal system, and everywhere else.

A2J Author Version 5.0 Released

The NCSC is very proud to share the following announcement of the important Access 2 Justice Author toolset that was first published on the CALI website

"The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) and the Center for Access to Justice and Technology at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law (CAJT) will be rolled out the new version of A2J Author® for the legal aid community on Friday, August 1, 2014 at 12 noon CST."

Three Interesting Things

This week we share some interesting ideas that have come to our attention on Pennsylvania’s new online Dependency Benchbook, an online support calculator, and how to publish Internet Calendars with Microsoft Office Outlook.

Texas Issues RFO for Cloud-Based CMS

The Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA) has issued a Request for Offers (RFO) for a statewide cloud-based trial court case management system.  The solicitation is available for download from the OCA's Procurement site (select the link for RFO 212-4-0672).

The OCA will host an Offeror's Conference in Austin on July 8, 2014 at 1:00 p.m. Central Time.  The deadline for submission of offers is July 25, 2014 at 3:00 p.m. Central Time.  See the RFO for more details.

Reminder Systems for Courts

Reminding people to appear at court or to make payments has achieved solid results.  We will discuss the studies, some courts with systems, and a USA commercial service provider in this article.

Court Decisions, “Link Rot”, and Perma.cc

As defined in Wikipedia, “Link rot” is an informal term for the process by which hyperlinks (either on individual websites or the Internet in general) point to web pages, servers or other resources that have become permanently unavailable.  This has become a serious problem in legal opinions and decisions.  A consortium of law libraries is taking action by creating Perma.cc.

This and That in Court Technology – March, 2014

Yes, it’s time for another post on news and notes regarding court tech.

The Software as a Service (SaaS) is a Trend in Court Tech

Some of you might have noticed that the CTB runs on the Google Blogger service.  Now courts are adopting SaaS too.

Connecticut Courts Announce Self-Represented E-Service Enhancements

The self-represented can now access Connecticut State Courts electronic services.