When Might Blockchain Appear in Your Court?

Magistrates Court, Nassau, The Bahamas

Guest bloggers and NCSC colleagues Di Graski & Paul Embley wrote the following for the COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee Trends series.  We are proud to present it here in the CTB this week.

Trends Statement:

The verifiable integrity of Blockchain records, linked and secured using cryptography, could soon be used in a variety of innovative ways to resolve court recordkeeping challenges. At the same time, Blockchain presents new legal issues that courts must be prepared to address.

UK Small Claims Online System Updated

https://goo.gl/J9cxhN

We learned in a press release that our favorite and the original, small claims system for the UK Courts have been updated.  The press release is titled: "Quicker way to resolve claim disputes launched online: A new online service to make it quicker and easier for people to claim money owed, resolve disputes out of court and access mediation has gone live."

The new service is available at: https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money

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...

More This and That in Court Tech – March 2018

https://goo.gl/yg8YSH

This edition contains a Judge’s response on court automation project criticism, Google Plus Addresses, a lawsuit between judges and clerk regarding their electronic document system implementation, editing PDF documents, the Indiana court’s E-filing implementation web page, and the new NCSC home page is announced.

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:

Court Document Verification in Brazil

The Supreme Court of Brazil

Last week I had the great honor of speaking with a very distinguished group of judges and lawyers from Brazil here at the NCSC. 

While I was preparing for the visit I found an order from one of the Federal Judges.  While reviewing it I found several very interesting ways that they are dealing with the electronic document verification in their courts.

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.

Registration for eCourts 2018 is open!

The day has come: Registration for eCourts 2018 is open. Register today to book at our lowest rate during Bonus Play.

eCourts is NCSC’s premium education conference where we focus on the hottest court management topics driven by the latest trends in technology. eCourts is the right conference for those seeking an immersive learning experience.

We are also launching our new eCourts website. We’ll be updating the site with conference information as we get closer. Bookmark the site today and follow NCSC on Twitter or Facebook, for all the latest.

(And in case you missed it, we’re taking your session proposals until March 9.) 

E-Courts 2018 Call for Proposals

E-Courts 2018 will take place at The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, December 10-12 and will provide opportunities to learn about practical applications of technology and innovations that may impact courts. This year we are reaching out to the community for session ideas to energize teams of administrators, technologists, and judges attending NCSC’s signature conference this year.

Technology, Borders and the Law

An excellent and thought-provoking post by Amy L. Howe on her blog discusses the current case before the Supreme Court of the United States regarding law enforcement warrant based access to Microsoft E-mail stored overseas in Ireland.

This is but one example of a huge issue facing the law and courts as technology makes national borders increasingly meaningless.