Join the IJIS Courts Advisory Committee (ICAC) on November 17, 2020 for a no-cost technology summit focused on engaging practitioners and industry, through open and frank conversations that advance the fidelity of virtual court operations. Practitioners will provide insight on needs, priorities, and experiences while the industry shares new opportunities that technology brings to the table.
In recent years I have often recommended projects to
acquire laptops instead of desktop computers.
This recommendation is even stronger today. I explain the reasons for this approach in this week’s
post below.
A free virtual summit is scheduled to be held on Friday, November
13 and continue the following Friday, November 20 from 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST
each day.
The summit is being organized by the National Institute for
Trial Advocacy (NITA) and the Online Courtroom Project. The conference writes “As courts around the country have struggled to continue operations in the face of the unprecedented
coronavirus pandemic, each state and the federal courts have issued their own
set of guidelines to try and resume trials. However, each jurisdiction, and
each judge has also implemented their own set of practices, given their
resources, staffing, budget, and judgment. While most of these national,
regional, and individual practices have been conducted on a trial and error
basis, the goal of this conference is to provide practical recommendations on
procedures, resources, and skills for both courts and attorneys who are looking
to conduct jury trials in this challenging time.
This conference is free of charge. Attendees are encouraged
to donate to a designated charity to assist underserved communities gain
greater access to technology and the internet.
For more and to sign up go to https://www.nita.org/summit-about
The photo above is from the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of
Florida’s Virtual Court Resources by Division/Case type web page at:
In this post we share tips to protect you from malware, Harris County’s new Covid-10 juror procedure video, the new Zoom language interpretation service, and a web page showing how Covid-19 aerosol dispersion works.
Lots of news this time on court tech. We note news about the E-Courts Conference
agenda, a scientific study of reminder systems impact on court appearances, Rocketlawyer
using Utah’s Regulatory Sandbox project to test innovations, why Alexa shouldn’t
be installed on your court’s internal computer network, JAVS management software
suite announcement, a company that
specializes in work from home setups, ransomware at Tyler Technologies, and an amazing number of Tiny Chats produced by our NCSC colleagues.
Just a short note today that shows how tech can really help. In an article on Medium.com, we learned a hand signal has been created that can be used by web/video conferencing users to signal domestic violence.
Elizabeth “Barajas-Román, who is the president and CEO of
the Women’s Funding Network, a global philanthropic network dedicated to women
and girls, wondered: How could survivors reach out and get the help they need
in a safe way? The solution she landed on, with the help of a WFN partner
group, was Signal for Help, a simple hand gesture that people experiencing
abuse could silently use during video calls to tell friends or loved ones that
they’re in trouble.”
The result is the graphic shown above. The signalforhelp.net website has more.
The great benefit of this approach is that it leaves no trail on messaging or e-mail systems that the abuser can find.
Pass this along.
FTA or Failure to Appear and FTP, or Failure to Pay is the source of a great percentage of warrants issued by courts along with giving great stress to those involved.
I have been thinking about the civil unrest earlier this
year and the place that failure to appear warrants seems to be involved. In this post, I will share some recent
thinking about these warrants and some tech that can help?
The Innovation for Justice Program ( www.law.arizona.edu/i4j ) at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law has issued a new and insightful report titled: The Utah Online Dispute Resolution Platform: A Usability Evaluation and Report (full report available online in PDF for download here)
It was announced that Texas District Court Judge Emily Miskel “who in May led the nation’s first-ever remote jury trial, is the recipient of the 2020 William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence, the highest honor bestowed to a state court judge by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC). This prestigious award honors a state court judge who demonstrates the outstanding qualities of judicial excellence, including integrity, fairness, open-mindedness, knowledge of the law, professional ethics, creativity, sound judgment, intellectual courage, and decisiveness.”
With the success of web and audio hearings during the Covid-19 pandemic, courts have proven that absent/remote persons can be made available by mobile or computer. It is time now to make this standard practice.
