Recently I heard multiple legal technology writers bemoan
the slowness that courts adopt and implement new online and similar
services. I explain why that is, and why
it is likely not to get better soon in this post? It is going to be a cold
winter.
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| Mural in the Ariel Rios Federal Building |
We can clearly foresee that the upcoming years will be difficult for governments and courts as tax revenue will take some time to recover following the Pandemic. Court budgets being primarily composed of personnel costs will respond by not filling empty positions, layoffs, and reducing service hours and/or days.
I have an idea that could be considered to ameliorate service
reductions that were introduced in recent years, famously by ride-sharing
companies such as Uber and Lyft, known as “dynamic” or “surge” pricing. I explain below.
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.
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.
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| 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
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| 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:
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.