This and That in Court Tech, March 2012 Edition

News about state E-filing legislation, OCR in PDF readers, San Francisco Superior Court E-filing RFP, Federal Courts CM/ECF progress, Microsoft Zoom.it, the E-Courts 2012 conference website, and the Wired Magazine's future of the process server.

Pennsylvania Issues One Millionth E-Citation

A press release from the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts and the Pennsylvania State Police on March 14, 2012:

One Million State Police Traffic Citations Issued Electronically
Supreme Court, PA State Police E-filing Initiative Improves Safety, Court Efficiency

Ten Tips for Buying Technology

The following article on technology purchasing was originally published in The Court Manager, a publication of the National Association for Court Management, many years ago by Curt DeClue and James McMillan.

Best Court Websites?

How about it readers.

What are your nominations for the best court websites?

Please share in the comments section below.

Going Green with E-filing

This article was originally published in the Winter, 2008 edition of the Texas Paralegal Journal and is posted here with their permission.  It provides additional arguments for savings via E-filing as discussed in our earlier post: Calculating an E-Court Return on Investment (ROI)

Submissions for Adaptive Case Management Award Announced

A call for nominations for the Adaptive Case Management Global Excellence Awards 2012 has been released.  The deadline for submitting a 250 word abstract, which answers the following three questions, is February 28, 2012.

Calculating an E-Court Return on Investment (ROI)

By James E. McMillan, NCSC; Carole D. Pettijohn, Ph.D., Director of Technology Services for R.B. "Chips" Shore, Manatee County Clerk of Court; Jennifer K. Berg, Esq., Sustainable Practice Leader, Northgate Environmental Management.

As it is legislative budget season for the USA state courts, it is a good time to look at the excellent work that Manatee County, Florida has done in calculating the return on investment of converting from a physical paper-based to an electronic-based organization.  In addition, this article will also discuss the environmental cost savings benefits of going “E”.

Glass World

Today all of us techies here at the NCSC were marveling at this video posted by Corning Glass titled "A Day Made of Glass" that shows various scenarios how glass displays are used now (photovoltaic and handheld display glass) and will be used in the future.

Smartphone Forms

Example from doFORMS

The recent Super Bowl television commercial by Samsung for their new smartphone that showed a pen interface was derided by the Apple acolytes (probably because it made fun of them).

Attorney Technology Motivations?

I don't know if it is just me or if others have noticed this but when dealing with some attorneys, particularly on the subject of E-filing there is often very strange push-back...as in, why would I want E-filing, online access, etc.?

The "3 Geeks and a Law Blog" (thanks Rob) has posted a very interesting article titled "Staying Relevant - Part 4: Technology and the Bottom-line".

They attribute some attorney resistance to technological change as "Cost-plus thinking" explaining:

"In a cost-plus world, firms react by draining the company of capital every December 31st. This mind-set does not view technology as an investment, but instead as a necessary expense. Worse yet, technology negatively impacts the number of hours and respective revenue generated by them. So why would a firm invest in it?"

The article continues with some excellent examples and counter-arguments to this worldview.  But I would also suggest that this "argument" should both inform and temper the court's response to criticisms of their technology initiatives.