E-Courts 2022 Featured Speaker - Judge Scott Schlegel

 

Judge Scott U. Schlegel, 24th Judicial District Court
for the Parish of Jefferson, Louisiana

Featured Speaker  | Using Low/No-Code Tech to Improve Workflows at eCourts 2022 Conference, December 5-7.

As the saying goes, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” He didn’t coin that phrase, but Judge Scott Schlegel of Louisiana is coming to set us straight. He will open the second day of eCourts with a presentation focused on how he uses off-the-shelf software to revolutionize the justice system. “It’s absurd how many continuances are filed just because nobody called opposing counsel to make sure it was okay with her calendar,” says Judge Schlegel. 

Court Forms Online Plus Toolkit

Courts everywhere should check out the Court Forms Online MassAccess project that was created and maintained by the Document Assembly Line Project at the Suffolk Law’s Legal Innovation and Technology Lab in cooperation with the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission’s COVID-19 task force.  But before we go further… the code tool sets are available online for free!  More…   

Online Courtroom Project Issues Report

Earlier this year we shared news about the Online Courtroom Project.  The two-day online trial was held June 26 and 27, 2020.  The findings were captured in a report posted on July 15, 2020.

The Economics of Court Technology

In June 2020 Los Angeles Superior Court announced the “LACourtConnect” program to facilitate web/video/audio appearance.  It is among many efforts to enable remote court access.  But there is more about this that is important that I will discuss below.

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.

A Couple of Good Mobile Court Apps

Our friends in the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department have developed a couple of simple and easy to use court apps.  They are available in English and Arabic on the Apple App Store so you can download them to see how they work?

Comic Book Contracts

https://creative-contracts.com/

At the recent Innovating Justice Forum, I had the great honor of meeting South African lawyer Robert de Rooy who created the idea of Comic Book Contracts to allow “an illiterate person to understand their” employment contract.  While this is a technology blog, this is such a powerful idea I had to share it with our readers to think about in regard to both paper and online agreement systems.  More below…

Rebooting Justice: More Technology, Fewer Lawyers, and the Future of Law

We are pleased to share the announcement of the eCourts 2018 conference keynote session.

University of Tennessee Law Professor Benjamin H. Barton will expand on the ideas in his and co-author Stephanos Bibas's 2017 book Rebooting Justice. They argue that our laws are too complex and legal advice too expensive. Both are obstacles for the poor and even middle-class Americans to get help and protect their rights.

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.

Clerk Bot

Craig Van Brussel, Chief Technology Officer in the First Judicial District of Florida shared news about their testing of “Robotic Process Automation” that was developed by Computing Systems Innovations (CSI) in Orlando.  More below:

JTC releases "Courts Disrupted" paper . . .

The Joint Technology Committee (JTC) has released a new Resource Bulletin titled “Courts Disrupted.” This paper takes a captivating look at today’s fast-changing world of innovation and public expectations. Recognizing courts will not remain untouched by disruptive innovation, the paper encourages embracing rather than resisting the opportunities to improve business processes and make justice more readily available to a wider audience.