This and That in Court Technology – February 2020

Irish Beef Stew

Just like the winter Irish beef stew shown in the picture to the right, we have a mix of great projects/ingredients to share this month.  They include serious security warning for Microsoft Windows, new AI decision reader from ROSS Intelligence, Lex Machina AI expanding into state courts, the PACER fees federal appeals hearing, Alaska Emailing jury summons, and automation program news from England & Wales and a new automation budget commitment for Ireland.

Singapore Chief Justice Maps Court's Tech Future

The New Singapore Courts Tower

We follow the Judiciary of Singapore closely here at the Court Technology Bulletin.  Being a small country, they can take bold steps in their technology portfolio.  On January 6, 2020 Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon made his annual Opening of the Legal Year address which highlighted many tech programs.

This and That in Court Technology – Halloween 2019

In this “busy holiday” edition of the CTB we share news about ODR in Yolo County, California, ideas for finding money for justice programs, yet another ransomware attack, a new institute on Speech to Text technology, Alexa voice response for juror information in Orlando, Florida, a report on court digitization in the Dallas, Texas Municipal Court, a new Oasis-Open standard for digital signatures, a “blueprint” report from England and Wales on digital justice, and the Sweden judiciary exploring interactive decisions.

The Purposes of Court Technology

I thought that I would share a post on the purpose of various court work processes and how technology has (or in some instances has not) changed them.  In other words, why do we do what we do in the legal/court system?

Let’s begin:

What to know before you go to CTC 2019

This week's CTB post shares all the information you need for the Court Technology Conference (CTC) 2019 next week in New Orleans, Louisiana from September 10-12, 2019.

It is going to be a terrific conference!  See you there.

Bob Roper

We have some sad news to share in this post.  Our good friend and former NCSC colleague, Bob Roper has passed.  The following notes are from friends who wish to share their stories about this true court technology pioneer.

From O. John Kuenhold:

Bob served as CIO of the Colorado Courts from 1992 until he resigned in September 2011. Bob’s leadership and vision initiated the long transition of the Branch into the world of electronic files, filing and the continuing development of a next-gen case management system. Bob was a founding member of CITOC and served for a decade on the COSCA-NACM Joint Technology Committee of the National Center for State Courts where he championed the role of technology in improving the quality of service to the public by the courts. Bob was a frequent presenter and panelist at the NCSC Court Technology Conferences E-Courts Conferences for 20 years.

Multi-Use Jury Assembly Rooms?

https://allaccesssys.com/jury-assembly-rooms/ 

For many years we have looked for ways to be able to “reuse jury assembly rooms”. Many jury assembly rooms consume a significant floorspace in courthouses simply because they need to be able to seat large numbers of persons at one time.  But the seating requirement is often only needed a few times per week or even per month.  Therefore, we have looked for ways to be able to easily divide these large spaces so that they can be used for other purposes.  A possible solution to the “dividing room problem” presented itself when I saw the Skyfold system.  n this post, I want to share some ideas as to how one might be able to apply it to your current or new courthouse.

A Court Robot Mashup Idea

Some of you might remember the 1970’s and 80’s USA television commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup candy where the tagline was “You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” 

I think I have a similar “mashup” idea for using robots in the courts.  I explain below.

Electronic Archives and Microfilm

While Block Chain, AI, and GDPR are new and exciting, sometimes we need to talk about older technology.  Most of it is paper which has its own set of challenges.  But microfilm has been the court archiving standard since at least the 1950’s in many jurisdictions.  Should it still be used?  If so, can it be made more useful?  We discuss below.

2018 NCSC Viz-A-Thon Winners Announced

The 2018 NCSC Viz-A-Thon was held last week, and the winners were announced.  The Viz-A-Thon sought to find solutions to the complex court organizational charts that are part of the State Court Organization website.

“The judges were impressed with each of the Finalists. All the solutions thoughtfully explored the structure charts and considered users who need to investigate and explore the structures to understand the courts and guide research and decision making. The solutions were refreshing and creative and demonstrated that the participants thought about the data and the complicated “story” of state court structures.”

The winning team was “Team Bosphorus: Gunhan Pikdoken, Bahadir Cankardes, Emre K. Ar, Şuayip Ekmekci” who presented their solutions from Istanbul, Turkey.

The judges were impressed with the beautiful display that used white space well and easily allowed users to explore the similarities and differences of the state courts. The solution was a full-stack development using D3 and Vue. Team Bosphorus’s experience with UI and UX best practices was clear.”

You can see and test their working solution, along with those of the second and third place teams on the Viz-A-Thon website at:

https://www.ncsc.org/vizathon

Congratulations to all for great work and event.

Leveraging the Court Component Model to Connect Business and Technology

Our friends with the IJIS Institute Courts Advisory Committee have developed a web-based tool to help court practitioners find information about technology vendors and products that align with the Court Component Model.  Jenny Bunch of ImageSoft shared the following write-up on behalf of the IJIS Courts Advisory Committee . . . 

Changing Frameworks – The Court Component Model and Agile Approaches

Graphic courtesy of Oriental Journal of Computer Science and Technology article "Component

Based Software Development Life Cycle Models: A Comparative Review" published 30-Jun-2017.

As promised in the recent post introducing the Court Component Model (CCM), some of our NCSC colleagues and partners will be sharing their perspectives on the CCM and ways it can be applied in real-world projects.

NCSC's very own Barb Holmes shares the following on her experiences working in the Pennsylvania Courts and how they combined a component-based approach with agile methods to tackle complex business problems and ever-changing requirements.

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Lessons on Court Public Access

Margaret Hagan, Director of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford University, posted a terrific article that summarizes the results of their policy lab course this spring on “Community-Led System Design Practice”.  The entire article is enlightening.  I will highlight some findings I found particularly interesting below.

Court Component Model - A Modular Approach to Court Applications

You've likely already heard about the Court Component Model (CCM). If not, please take a look at this JTC Resource Bulletin. It provides a great introduction to the model.

The Court Component Model has garnered much attention in recent months from courts and solution providers alike. It provides a relatively simple way of looking at logical groupings of functional capabilities specific to a court business function. Each grouping of capabilities can be implemented as a component that operates independently of other components but integrates with them via well-defined, standards-based interfaces.

Names are Complicated

For court systems, who must deal with persons from all the wonderful cultures from around the world, as well as corporations and other legal entities, how names are captured and displayed in the case and document management systems can be a challenge.  We discuss below.

E-Courts 2018 Call for Proposals

E-Courts 2018 will take place at The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, December 10-12 and will provide opportunities to learn about practical applications of technology and innovations that may impact courts. This year we are reaching out to the community for session ideas to energize teams of administrators, technologists, and judges attending NCSC’s signature conference this year.

Technology, Borders and the Law

An excellent and thought-provoking post by Amy L. Howe on her blog discusses the current case before the Supreme Court of the United States regarding law enforcement warrant based access to Microsoft E-mail stored overseas in Ireland.

This is but one example of a huge issue facing the law and courts as technology makes national borders increasingly meaningless.

Georgia Supreme Court Issues New Rule on Recording Devices

Issued by the Georgia Supreme Court on February 6, 2018:

"The following order was passed:

It is ordered that Uniform Superior Court Rule 22, which relates to the use of electronic devices in courtrooms and recording of judicial proceedings by representatives of the news media and other persons, be amended. The amended Rule 22, which is the product of several years of study and discussion by the Council of Superior Court Judges, this Court, and numerous organizations that provided written and oral comments on proposed rule drafts, replaces the existing Rule 22 in its entirety.  The amended rule continues to implement OCGA § 15-1-10.1 but is updated to reflect developments over the last two decades in recording technology, in the news media, and, most significantly, in recording devices – namely, the smart phones and other mobile computers with recording capabilities that today are routinely carried and used by most people in this state.  The amended Rule 22 will take effect on May 1,2018, and reads as follows:

Social Media and the Courts Policy Reviewed & Some Sad News

The Vermont Courts are considering new rules for use of social media in their courts.  I am a great fan of the work of retired Supreme Court Justice John Dooley and his participation in this work had me take notice  (btw, Justice Dooley gave the keynote speech at the first E-Courts Conference).  Also, since we are on the subject, we share some information from our NCSC Social Media and the Courts Network website.  And last, we received some sad news this week on the passing of court technology pioneer, Sir Henry Brooke.

JTC Resource Bulletins on ODR

In case you haven't seen them already, the Joint Technology Committee (JTC) published two resource bulletins last month on the topic of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR). These papers provide excellent insight into how courts are leveraging technology to expand services and provide more timely and cost effective ways for citizens to resolve disputes.