Virtual eCourts 2020 Starts Today

A small reminder, Virtual eCourts conference starts today, December 7, 2020.  Held each day for about 4 hours, one can still sign up at https://e-courts.org/ for the Zoom webinar.  

eCourts 2020 Agenda Online - #eCourts2020

 As with nearly all conferences, this year eCourts 2020 is a virtual online event on December 7, 8, and 9 starting at 1:00 PM eastern standard time each day.  We have an outstanding list of presentations scheduled.  The full list is available at https://e-courts.org/conference-info/   Some highlights are…

Monday Sessions

Keynote – Motivating Strategies for a Remote World, presenter Thomas Topping who is a professional speaker and employee engagement expert with a master’s degree in Human Resources Management. He has spent his career transforming teams and training individuals for some of the largest organizations in the United States. His professional contributions have been described as innovative, unique, pioneering, daring, and out-of-the-box.

Texas Issues RFO for Statewide Uniform CMS

A Texas Armadillo

We learned on November 17, 2020, that:

“The Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA), a judicial branch agency that assists the Supreme Court of Texas with the administration of the Texas courts, invites submissions of offers for a statewide, integrated, comprehensive, cloud‐based uniform case management system and associated implementation services in compliance with the requirements and terms set forth in this RFO (UCMS).”

Of note, questions are due by December 8, 2020 with offer submissions due on January 21, 2020.

The full RFO announcement and documents are available online at http://www.txsmartbuy.com/esbddetails/view/212210180

British Island of Jersey Releases CCMS “Tender”

 

St. Helier Harbor

 

I heard from our friend, Marcus Ferbrache that his court has released an RFP/Tender for a court case management system for the British Island of Jersey.  He explains below:

 

IJIS Virtual Summit: The New Age of Court Technology

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.

Laptops as the Court’s Standard Computer

 

 

 

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.

 

COVID, the Court, and the Future of the Jury Trial Summit

 

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

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The photo above is from the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida’s Virtual Court Resources by Division/Case type web page at:

https://www.jud11.flcourts.org/Court-Announcements/ArtMID/584/ArticleID/3567/Virtual-Court-Resources-by-Division-Case-Type

 

 

Tips to Reduce Ransomware Risk and More…

 

 

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.

This and That in Court Technology, October 2020

 

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. 

 

A Domestic Violence Hand Signal for Video Calls

 

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.