Self-Help Information by the Courts in 2021

We were curious as to the status of online court help to the self-represented litigants as a good 2021 year-end wrapup article for the CTB?  We share what we found below.

In addition, we just learned of a new NIJ study on the use of Chatbots in the Criminal Justice System to add to our list of online helpers.  

Measuring Access to Justice

 

I stumbled across two outstanding articles on how to measure Access to Justice.  The first article is a summary posted on Medium.com by Ms. Rachel Wang that analyzes the second by Mr. Hugh McDonald UC Irvine Law Review article titled “Assessing Access to Justice: How Much “Legal” Do People Need and How Can We Know? 

In short, why has it taken this long to ask the questions posed in these articles?

New Tools to Use Documents as a Data Source

 

Continuing the general theme of earlier CTB articles here, here, and here on using documents as the database for context, analysis, and data entry; we saw an article from Infoworld.com today that lists tools by AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Document AI that “can parse your unstructured documents and produce structured information for all kinds of digital transformation use cases”.

Bankers Share Plans for Expanding Financial Services for Justice System Involved Persons

 

From "not the usual ABA (American Bar Association)" the courts normally hear from, it is good to know that the Bankers are thinking about the criminal justice system.  The American Bankers Association share via press release on November 10 2021 their new whitepaper.

Beam (my language) up, Simultaneous Interpretation Feature Added to Virtual Proceedings Platforms

Created by Yu luck, Noun Project

By Konstantina Vagenas, NCSC

At the onset of the pandemic, courts pivoted overnight to virtual hearings to comply with health and safety guidelines.  Court interpreters were required to provide their services remotely via court-approved and licensed videoconferencing platforms. Among these, WebEx and Zoom were the most common. The major challenge in these proceedings was the absence of an integrated, simultaneous interpretation channel, which interpreters overcame by adding an additional audio device, usually a personal mobile phone—a suboptimal solution.  Within a few weeks, the court interpreting world was abuzz with the advantages offered by Zoom’s embedded simultaneous court interpreting channels. Like characters in Star Trek, interpreters were being “beamed up” to virtual courtrooms.

Webinars, Videos, and Bears Oh My!

 

Just kidding about the Bears.  There have been a lot of training and information sessions posted online lately plus some court pandemic response training and ODR news.  Check it out below.

Nevada AOC Issues CMS RFP

The Nevada Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), a judicial branch department that assists the Supreme Court of Nevada with the administration of the Nevada courts, invites submissions of offers for up-to-three AOC-sponsored, integrated, comprehensive, case management system(s) (CMS) and associated implementation services in compliance with the requirements and terms set forth in this RFP.

Please see; https://nvcourts.gov/AOC/Procurements/ for details. Vendors, please monitor the webpage for updates. The deadline for submission of offers is December 13, 2021, at 3:00 PM Pacific Time.

The IJIS Courts Advisory Committee (ICAC) Presents Digital Evidence Training Event

 

Via press release from the IJIS Institute:

Over the past several years, our society has seen an influx of advanced technology solutions that have made available a tsunami of structured and unstructured data about our lives, our public safety, and our disputes. As a result, law enforcement, prosecutors, defense counsels, the private bar, and the courts are all faced with an abundant amount of data (both relevant and irrelevant) for investigations, discovery, and court cases. The collection of this data ultimately requires a great deal of time and effort by public safety and criminal justice practitioners globally. How should our law enforcement and court communities adapt to this increased demand for the collection, vetting, management, and sharing of digital evidence?

This and That in Court Technology - October 2021

 

Fall leaves via https://bit.ly/3vPp959

In this months post, we share news and notes from Tiny Chat on Text Messaging, a very nice online forms website from Washington state, news regarding a new US federal judiciary vulnerability policy, news of good work being done by the District Court in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, practical information on PDF file formats from the US Library of Congress, and a last-minute call for participation in the annual Trends in State Courts report.

High Court of Japan to host Intellectual Property Symposium

 

The Intellectual Property High Court of Japan (IPHC), together with several other legal organizations, annually holds their Judicial Symposium on Intellectual Property (JSIP).  This year, JSIP 2021 will be held online from October 20 through 22(JST).

More below…