This and That in Court Technology May 2020

In this month’s highlights we share information about the PASS (Public Access Software Spec), our NCSC Tiny Chat about digital signatures, e-notarization and digital notice, Tyler’s Virtual Court offering, virtual court hearings in Nigeria, an electronic hearing practice guide posted by the Trinidad and Tobago Judiciary, and special offers by Microsoft for public safety and non-profits in response to the pandemic.

eFileTexas 2.0 RFO Issued

Big Tex at the Texas State Fair

The Texas Office of Court Administration is providing an official notification of an RFO titled “eFileTexas 2.0”.

 The Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA), a judicial branch agency that assists the Supreme Court of Texas with the administration of the Texas courts, invites submissions of offers for systems and services for a statewide cloud‐based, COTS electronic filing system, a document access system, a redaction component, and a forms assembly solution (“eFileTexas 2.0” or “Solution”).

Virus Outbreak Prompts China's Courts to go Online

We learned from the South China Morning Post (via a repost from Abacus)

As a result of the COVID-19 (Corona Virus) outbreak, the courts in China have moved much of their work to online electronic services.

"The Shanghai High Court recorded a 63 percent increase in online court cases compared with the same period last year, state media reported. In addition to handling court case filings online, the court is using online platforms to handle payments, contact with judges, material submissions and other litigation services. Remote court trials are conducted over video links.

Online court technology is also being used in other parts of the country, but not everything is going smoothly. Assistant judge Ma Chengcheng of the Intermediate People’s Court in Xinyang told local media that before the trial, participants needed to be contacted by phone or WeChat and patiently walked through how to use the software."

Judge Rose Zamora Awarded McMillan Scholarship at CTC-2019

Jim McMillan and Judge Rose Zamora at CTC-2019

We are pleased to share that Judge Rose Zamora from the New Braunfels Texas Municipal Court was awarded the McMillan Scholarship at the CTC 2019 Conference for her innovations.  Much more below:

2019 State Court E-Filing Program Status List

We compiled the following list of court E-filing program links in August 2019.  This is an update to the list we created in 2016.  We found information for every state and territory except Oklahoma and American Samoa.  Congratulations to all the courts for their
hard work.

This and That in Court Tech - July 2019

http://bit.ly/2O0gxGA

This month’s summer basket of Court Technology news includes the CTC 2019 agenda announcement, Arizona’s new eAccess Online Portal, a note on savings created by the use of the Florida E-Filing Portal, an award for the Pennsylvania Court Guardianship technology program, a report for the England and Wales courts on legal technology, and a tutorial on how to use Microsoft Office 365’s e-discovery tools.

LegalXML Electronic Court Filing 5.0 Standard Approved

OASIS is pleased to announce that Electronic Court Filing Version 5.0 (ECF) from the OASIS LegalXML Electronic Court Filing Technical Committee [1] has been approved as an OASIS Committee Specification.  (ed note: the committee has been working on this for years BTW.)

ECF defines a technical architecture and a set of components, operations and message structures for an electronic court filing system, and sets forth rules governing its implementation. Version 5.0 provides a number of enhancements including:

How Courts Can Use Reminders to Reduce Failure to Appear

Franklin County, Kansas Courthouse

Our guest blogger this week is Mr. Ibrahim Aissam, Chief Technology Officer from eCourtDate.com.  He explains the benefits to courts of sending reminders:

Courts and justice agencies around the country struggle with reducing failure-to-appear rates. Although there will probably never be a fail-proof solution to have a 100% appearance rate, technology can certainly help. It’s hard to believe that something as simple as text message reminders consistently reduces FTAs. Sometimes, people just need a nudge to go to court. The following are a few tips for any court considering or planning a reminder program, regardless of the technology used:

This and That in Court Technology – Early March, 2018

Lady Justice - Supreme Court of Nigeria

This month’s edition we share posts regarding the Court Messaging Project, elimination of paper submissions at the Supreme Court of Nigeria, another good online traffic case dispute resolution story, Code for America CourtBot, Massachusetts Trial Courts eliminating court reporters, and links to the Global Legal Hackathon.

Structuring Court Communications with an App

Courts are different than many other businesses or services.  A rather obvious statement I know.  But a very important difference is that we have very formal court rules and legal statutes that create the steps, as well as boundaries, in how information is presented.  The rules also determine how the courts evaluate the completeness and truthfulness of the information presented.  Because of these structures and rules, I have been very cautious about the court's use of social media that as we know, have very few if any rules.

But communication is hard for many people.  This is especially true for communication that is structured to persuade or argue a point of view or law.  Therefore, an app that helps people, especially the self-represented litigants to accomplish this, is of great interest to me.

Millions and Millions Served

An original McDonald's Restaurant

When I was young, the US fast food restaurant, McDonald’s would display that they had sold over 1 million and later 2 million hamburgers (see picture at the left).  Court E-filing has been like that.  Slow adoption at first.  But now after 20 years, there are now millions of E-filings recorded.

Blockchain for Criminal Charge Tracking?

https://goo.gl/qv8unC

A recent question to the NCSC Community bulletin board regarding Blockchain technology led to the following thoughts regarding its potential use in one of the most difficult problems we have faced in the justice community since the 1970’s, criminal charge tracking.  We discuss below.

Law Firms as an Electronic Filing Service Provider

We are pleased to share the following article by Mr. Dallas Powell, President of Tybera, Inc., an E-filing services company.  In the article he shares their experience with law firms and government agencies connecting directly to the court's EFM (E-Filing Manager) services.

Another Technology to Plan For: Blockchain Contracts

As we all know, courts have to deal with contracts between parties.  And courts also very often have to verify the authenticity of information.

There is a lot of work going on using Blockchain database technology.  So it is time to learn about and plan for its use in the justice system.  We discuss below.

A List of State Court E-Filing Fees

Bill Raftery and I did some research this week that we want to share.  I have uploaded a new list for E-filing links.  But this time we have tried to include the costs/fees that are associated with the services.

Please share in the comments below if we made any mistakes or omissions so that everyone has the best information.

Click here to view/download the PDF list document - Updated, March 9, 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.

This and That in Court Technology – April/Spring 2015 Edition

From a flowering springtime in Williamsburg, Virginia we share our latest news bites from around the court tech world.  In this edition we share news about a CTC scholarship, social media process service, another electronic verification failure, new mobile phone apps for scanning and court check in, a white paper on court technology in 2020, and conference news.

Bankruptcy Courts Report Savings and other Benefits from Electronic Noticing

DeBN Logo Developed by the
Bankruptcy Court for the
Central District of California

Via press release on February 19, 2015, we learned about the US Bankruptcy court electronic noticing system.  They write:

"While business is increasingly conducted using smart phones, tablets and laptops, debtors who file for bankruptcy protection continue to receive paper copies of court notices and orders by regular mail — a practice that consumes both time and money. Thanks to a new program available through the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC), debtors in participating courts now have the option of receiving court-generated notices and orders electronically.

Orange County, California E-Filing Benefits Reported

Orange County Courthouse

In response to our earlier Court Technology Bulletin article regarding the difficulty in quantifying the benefits of E-filing, we heard from the Judicial Council of California regarding a recently submitted report to their legislature on the topic.

This and That in Court Technology – December, 2014

Nevada Chief Justice Mark Gibbons

Notes and article links about E-Courts, Wearable Evidence in courts, a settlement about inaccurate court data in a credit bureau, monitor twisting, smartphone driver’s licenses, a “Moneyball” approach to crime prosecution, E-filing at Michigan appellate courts, the Texas Bar online legal education website, Ms. Sharon Nelson, and upcoming conferences in this month's This and That.