US Federal Court E-Filing Rules

Attorney Howard J. Bashman, in his regular column for Law.com, discusses new rules for unpublished citations and appellate court E-filing in his article "What Do the Federal Appellate Procedure Rule Changes Mean for You?" (12/2010 update: please note that access to this article requires a subscription to Law.com)

Ohio Courts Technology Survey Released

The Supreme Court of Ohio has recently released a summary of their latest technology survey. Highlights include finding that nearly all courts have Internet access and approximately half have some kind of document imaging technology installed.

Drug Court Online Training Event

"Drug Courts Reexamined," is a free online event November 13, 2006 2:00–4:00 pm (eastern time)

Featuring:

• Michael Rempel, Research Director at the Center for Court Innovation.
• Peter F. Luongo, Ph.D., Director of the Maryland Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration.
• Judge Terry D. Terrell, First Judicial Circuit Court of Florida.
• Moderated by Thomas J. Charron, Executive Director of the National District Attorneys Association.

The event is hosted by: Harvard University's Government Innovators Network, the National Institute of Justice of the U.S. Department of Justice, and the online housing resource KnowledgePlex.

US Sentencing Comission Electronic Reporting

In its Fall 2006 Guidelines Newsletter the US Federal Sentencing Commission notes that 70 Federal District Courts are "submitting their case files electronically." The case files include "the five required documents (i.e., judgment and commitment order, statement of reasons form, any plea agreement, the charging document, and the presentence report)" using PDF format.

(Author's note: Now if we can just get them to use the GJXDM. For more information about XML-based charge and sentencing reporting see our National Standards web page )

A Great Domestic Court Judge's Website in Ohio

We have recently become aware of Judge Mike Voris' web site for the Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Division, in Clermont County, Batavia, Ohio: http://www.domesticcourt.org/
He features a lot of court forms, a streaming video interview as well as other information to help litigants navigate their way through the judicial system. Well done!

Ohio Supreme Court Announces Effort to Build Statewide Network Connecting Courts

State of Ohio Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer recently announced in his State of the Judiciary Address that a plan to build a statewide network connecting courts throughout the state to share information with each other and law enforcement partners is moving forward.

Links to Supreme Courts Around the World

Our good friend Judge Stein Schjolberg from Norway has build a very handy new website, Global Courts, that provides links to national Supreme Court decisions from around the world.

Saving a Troubled Project

Computerworld magazine posted an excellent article regarding techniques that can be applied to salvage a troubled information technology project

Saving a Troubled Project

Computerworld magazine posted an excellent article regarding techniques that can be applied to salvage a troubled information technology project

XML Documents - Why Should I Care?

I can summarize the answer to the above titled question in one word - control. For as long as court case management systems have existed, there has been a continual struggle between the need for more data to be added and the time it takes for a programmer and database administrator to add it to the system. XML documents can give court staff an additional tool to add and control their own data collection instruments, just like they could in the "paper world." Now there are currently significant issues as to whether the court case management system being used in a particular court can store or link to documents. But once that is in place, and there is an upgrade to new XML-enabled databases, court staff will be able to use documents as an integral part of their system. Mr. Ronald Bourret has written a general tutorial about XML and Databases that may be of help in explaining this concept further. In addition, there are a few InfoWorld articles on Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2 databases that, while rather technical, can provide addition illumination of the new database capabilities and hence, new thinking that needs to be applied to our situation in the courts.

Next time - Using Search to Count