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.

Tech Interns for Courts: Some Ideas

Over the years I have had some excellent interns that worked for me in Arizona, on international projects, and here at the NCSC.   It seems that, not surprisingly, all of them went on to good careers.  In this week's post, I will share some project ideas for your potential interns and second, some tips to make their experience a rewarding one.

“AI” in Justice Systems

We heard about a new program that the San Francisco, California District Attorney is developing a program to attempt to reduce racial bias. That and another article on “AI Hype” and other AI development projects are in this week’s post.

Council of Europe adopts first European Ethical Charter on the use of artificial intelligence in judicial systems

In a press release on December 4, 2018:

The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of Europe has adopted the first European text setting out ethical principles relating to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in judicial systems.

The Charter provides a framework of principles that can guide policymakers, legislators and justice professionals when they grapple with the rapid development of AI in national judicial processes.

Court Case Management Systems Part 20: User Interface (UI) and More

https://goo.gl/UGJioL

In this long-delayed edition in the Court Case Management Systems (CCMS) series, we will discuss some thoughts on user interfaces (UI) for court systems.  It is an exciting time to explore this area because the technology is developing quickly, and there are many new possibilities for developers to consider.  And because of all the new developments, this article has been delayed many times.

But it is summer time and so it is time to dive in...

Note: Previous work by our colleagues at the NCSC and other experts provides the list of functionality (the what). This CCMS series has been our attempt to describe “how” technologies have been and could be used in the courts.  

Click here for the previous posts in this series.

Graphical Association for Scheduling

Some of our long-time readers may notice that I am a fan of graphical displays to help to connect information and make things easier to understand.  And you might also remember that I have been testing the X.AI artificial intelligence scheduling assistant, Amy Ingram (but I found they also have Andrew).  This week I learned that they are testing a graphical reporting tool for their scheduling system.  Cool, I thought. More below...

Microsoft/Legal Aid Tech/Voice-Response Portals

There is so much to this story I couldn’t really write a title that reflected all of the exciting news.  We learned that Microsoft is currently investing in applying their new AI enabled voice-response technology to the problem of legal aid for the disadvantaged.  They have engaged with our friends and experts in the subject at the Legal Services Corporation and Probono.net. Much more below...

Judge Michael Marcus – The Passing of a Court Tech Pioneer

Hon. Michael Marcus

Last month we were saddened to hear of the passing of Judge Michael Marcus formerly of the Multnomah County (Portland, Oregon) Circuit Court.  I had the great pleasure of knowing Michael since the late 1990’s because of his work in developing the concept of “Smart Sentencing”.   A video of a presentation Judge Marcus made on his work from 2010 is available here.

Judge Marcus also wrote one of the most popular articles in the history of the Court Tech Bulletin about his "Search for a Quiet Keyboard” in 2007.

But back to the main subject below.

Loomis vs. Wisconsin Cert Denied

The Supreme Court of the United States denied cert in a case asking to expose the risk algorithm used by Northpointe's COMPAS system.

Structuring Documents – Why and How

The challenge we have as courts is to turn documents into actionable information.  We most commonly do this by re-entering data into the case management systems database.  The courts can and should do better by using the software that most everyone already owns.  We discuss below.

Daniel Lewis on Judge Analytics

This week we are happy to share a new interview with Daniel Lewis, CEO and Co-founder of Ravel Law on their new Judge Analytics system.

Court Tech Research & Training News – January, 2017

There have been several interesting articles, and research published related to court technology topics over the past several months.  In this post, we share articles on Decision Making, Online Access to State Judicial Systems, Evaluating the Use of Videoconferencing Technology in Domestic Violence Ex Parte Hearings, Blockchain technology as a regulatory technology, and a Free Webinar on Cybersecurity coming up on January 18, 2017.

Kentucky Pretrial Services Virtual Tour

Via the December, 2016 SJI Newsletter

Hosted by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), the Pretrial Justice Center for Courts is a national collaborative initiative featuring the latest efforts to develop and improve pretrial services. Recently, Kentucky Pretrial Services launched a virtual tour aimed at fellow pretrial service providers and those stakeholders new to the Kentucky Court of Justice process.

Court Case Management Systems Part 18: Decision Support

In the previous post in our series we discussed Court Case Management Systems (CCMS) Dashboards that support case process, management information, and decisions.  In other words, information that makes our “court process factory” more efficient.  And the key purpose of case management is to organize data (and insure completeness) so that it can in turn be converted into information for cases to be adjudicated and decisions rendered.

But what’s next?  We think that one part of the answer is to integrate and extend the judicial decision support functionality into the CCMS itself. We explain below…

ROSS – Artificial Intelligent Lawyer

IBM Watson - Home of ROSS

Earlier this week I heard about ROSS for the first time from the brilliant Snorri Ogata of the Los Angeles Superior Court at the NAPCO Conference in Cleveland.  So I had to learn more…

Court Case Management Events and Decision Mapping

Earlier this week I participated in the BPM and Case Management Global Summit conference with my good friend and colleague, John Matthias of the NCSC Court Services Division.  He shared some of his recent work on court case management systems including decision mapping.

JTC Webinar: Using Technology to Improve Pretrial Release Decision-Making

The Joint Technology Committee (JTC) will host a webinar next Tuesday, June 28 on technology and risk-assessment tools to support pretrial release decision-making.

This and That in Court Technology – Early Summer 2016

At the beginning of summer 2016, we share court technology news from the IACA European Regional Conference, Mississippi mobile access to justice app plans, online juror research restriction, Colorado online court information access questions, and a really big new computer monitor.

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.

Watson Law

An article about a talk by Ms. Kyla Moran, IBM senior consultant with the Watson Industry Leadership group at a Legal Futures Annual Conference in London, England has me thinking…