Published by press release on March 4, 2021, in US Courts News
"Even as vaccines begin to protect the public from the coronavirus (COVID-19), one of the Judiciary’s biggest priorities is ensuring that the air inside courtrooms and hallways remains safe as courts schedule more in-person legal proceedings.
The Freakonomics website has a page that discusses the quote in the title of this post. It is
obviously appropriate for the courts in this time of the Covid-19 pandemic, but
I have used it in another context, when a new case, document, or e-filing
systems are being introduced into a court.
I explain below…
My friend Bob Ambrogi asked for comment during last Friday’s Legaltech Week Journalists’ Roundtable (an excellent discussion every week about our court customers). The discussion turned briefly to Jason Tashea's proposal via the DayOneProject.org initiative titled “Digitizing State Courts, Expanding Access to Justice”. The following is my partial reply to the question asked.
I applaud Mr. Tashea for thinking about the problem. But I think there is a lot more to consider and there are additional options? I explain…
Winter 2021
There is a massive amount of court technology news this month. We learned about, US Federal Courts response to the Covid-19 pandemic, conference news from the Innovating Justice 2021 and Legalweek 2021 events, California’s CourtStack initiative, Mark Beer’s upcoming talk on AI support for judicial decision making, Seattle and King County’s impact and response to the pandemic caseload, the NACM video podcast on Teleworking, and proposed USA federal government rules on digital format archiving.
Most of our readers have seen the Zoom filer mishap online video
known as “I’m not a cat”. The story even made the news in Germany and late-night TV shows. First, I want to congratulate the Judge for
handling the problem, but I have a different view of how we can learn from
this?
Join us virtually, February 17-18, 2021, for the IJIS Institute National Symposium. This event will highlight national priority initiatives benefiting all levels of government and brings together industry solution providers, government leaders, and representatives from nonprofit and academic organizations to network and collaborate in a neutral, non-sales environment. The National Symposium offers the unique opportunity to hear first-hand from state and local government officials and Federal government leaders.
We’re happy to announce that all session replays from eCourts 2020 are now available at https://vimeo.com/showcase/8000351
Here are some highlights:
If you couldn’t make the conference, missed a session, or want to share a memorable session with a colleague, they’re all ready for you to watch in our eCourts 2020 Virtual Session Showcase.
Get the latest eCourts 2020 information at e-Courts.org
I read with interest announcements regarding a new MicrosoftTeams “Meeting Recap” feature (along with a couple of other interesting functions) that begins roll out soon. The announcement says…
“Originally announced in September 2020, this new meeting experience will allow participants or people unable to attend the meeting to access meeting content after it has ended. Microsoft Teams will automatically share the meeting recording, transcript, chat, shared files, and more in the meeting’s details tab.”
Everyone can easily foresee the surge of in-person court cases that are coming later in 2021. Many courts have put case processing on hold. And assuming that the vaccination program will be successful in the first half of the year, what can courts do to address the case backlog and new matters that will come? I have some ideas that I will share below.
Please also note that my colleagues and friends of the
NCSC have created a tremendous resource around courts and the pandemic at https://www.ncsc.org/newsroom/public-health-emergency
Click on the Statewide Plans to Resume
Court Operations link (you may have to scroll across the red navigation bar to
find it).
Please read the full article here.