“Managing Digital Evidence in Courts”

The COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee has issued a new report: “Managing Digital Evidence in Courts”.  The report identifies potential challenges and recommends steps courts should consider when receiving, evaluating, protecting, and presenting digital evidence, including video from body-worn cameras, private citizens, and other sources.

Click here to view and download the report.

Legislatures are starting to tell data services – clean your records

Legislative action in Colorado in 2011/2014 and Virginia this year are requiring public data service they must remove expunged records.  More below.

Judges Leverage Full-Text Searching

We are happy to share a guest post from Ms. Jenny Bunch of Mentis Technology Solutions on how judges are finding the benefits of full-text search in their aiSmartBench (E-Bench) system.

FileTime Lowers Barriers for E-filing in Texas

A good friend of ours, Tom Schoolcraft from FileTime wrote the following article for our CTB readers about their Electronic Filing Service Provider (EFSP) system in Texas.  As an aside, I have long supported the EFSP concept as they can provide capabilities that are not part of “normal” filing such as document conversion services.  See below for more…

This and That in Court Technology – December, 2015

We talk about saving websites as PDF's, an IT administrative position announcement, another judge reprimanded for social media use, police body cameras infected with a computer virus, LexisNexis acquisition of Lex Machina, and more...

New York Courts Win 2015 Legaltech Innovation Award

Program Assisting Domestic Violence Victims Winner, Innovative Use of Technology in a Pro Bono Project.

Highlighting Some CTC-2015 Education Sessions

We share some CTC-2015 sessions that you might consider when attending the upcoming conference. But this article is mainly to show a sample of the outstanding conference content coming this fall in Minneapolis.

An early July, 2015 edition of This and That in Court Technology

A summer Iowa corn field

Lots and lots to share including news from Iowa, Texas, Arkansas,  US Federal Court’s OSCAR system, a new records management app, and tips for “mobile warriors”.

Even More This and That in Court Tech – June, 2015

2,500 year old Babylonian clay tablet

Remember that CTC-2015 is only three months away.  See http://ctc2015.org for more.  This week's post notes the CITOC Innovation Awards nominations, IJIS, PDF, NAJIS conferences, South Africa recognizes E-signatures, Michigan state court videoconferencing, M-Disc, and a funny from Harvard Business Review.

This and That in Court Technology – June, 2015

Time for another “This and That” roundup of court technology news.

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:

Nebraska Shares Court Case Data Protection Rules

There has been a recent discussion regarding how courts are dealing with information privacy issues for their document repositories.  The Nebraska courts have posted their criminal and civil case court rules governing these documents on two web pages.  And Ms. Jennifer Rasmussen, their CIO notes that “(t)hese rules have allowed us to make court document images available online since 2008 and are working well.  In addition, we did a spot check in 2013 to see if attorneys were complying and found very few instances where they were not.”

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.

A CCMS Smart Document Receipt Concept

Recently I have been working on the concept of a “smart receipt” that would be generated by a CCMS for either E-filing or “in-person” filing.  I share my ideas in the article below…

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.

Electronic Briefs Explained

Probate Court Judge Don Wilkes,
Ms. Lisa Joyner and Ms. Kristie Pope
Candler Co., Georgia

Attorney Ms. Elizabeth “Ellie” Neiberger wrote a terrific article for the Florida Law Journal (February, 2015 Volume 89, No. 2, page 46) titled “Judge-Friendly Briefs in the Electronic Age”.  She starts the article with the advice “(t)he golden rule for any type of writing is ‘write for the reader’.  Appellate judges read a lot, and how they read is changing.”