Federal Courts IT Initiatives for 2008

 The Third Branch US Federal Courts newsletter for February, 2008 contains an article titled: Local IT Initiatives Funded for FY 2008.  The article discusses four project that are funded under the Edwin L. Nelson Local IT Initiatives Grant Program.  The article states: "the IT grand program encourages and promotes local court technology innovations that can be shared with other courts".

E-Courts 2008 Agenda Available

An update to the E-Courts 2008 conference agenda has been posted to the conference website. The E-Courts conference will be held from December 8-10, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. While there are a few details remaining to be finalized, the agenda will give one a good idea of this years conference content. It is anticipated that the conference session descriptions will be available soon.

Montgomery County, Ohio E-Filing Blog

Our good friend, James Drubert, the Court Administrator at the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court in Dayton, Ohio shares that they have started a blog on their E-filing project and related E-filing issues. To read and share ideas on their blog, go to:
http://www.montcourt.org:8080/wordpress/

AIIM 2008 Report

Last week I visited the AIIM 2008 conference and exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts.  I saw several items that may be of interest to our friends in the court community.  First, I am a fan of straight path scanners.  Anything that keeps paper from leaving its original “flat orientation” is a good idea. One example is the HP Scanjet 7800 that is rated at 25 pages per minute, but can also scan two-sided with one pass and has a 50 page document feeder.  It has some nice software that comes with it.  Second, many of us are trying to create and post online forms.  The company that makes the Foxit PDF reader program has a Form Designer Program available for $79.  At that price one might as well try it.  And finally, for those courts that are undertaking scanning projects that involve docket, registry, or minute books, one might be interested in a scanner that automatically scans and turns the pages by itself by Kirtas Technologies.  They also have a service bureau if one wants to use the scanning system for a limited job.

Norfolk Virginia Plans Digital Files

An article titled Norfolk court clerk bytes off ambitious goal: paperless files published last year in the Virginian-Pilot newspaper; the Clerk of Circuit Court in Norfolk, Virginia, George Schaefer, describes the benefits of converting from a paper to digital system.

Ingham County Michigan E-Court Plans

The February 3, 2008 edition of the Lansing State Journal in Lansing Michigan contains an article titled: Ingham Co. plans to put court records on Internet.  The article notes "Under the concept, most circuit court documents - such as lawsuits and court motions - would be scanned into a system at the courthouse and be viewable online."

Seattle Bike Messengers a Dying Breed

The February 25, 2008 edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper in Seattle, Washington describes in an article titled: "The plea of a dying breed: Don't kill the bike messengers" the impact of E-mail and E-filing is having on their business.

Internet Overhaul Begins

For our more technical friends out there, earlier this month (as described in this article from the BBC) the master Internet record addresses started the long process of being upgraded from the standard Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) to Version 6 (IPv6). The upgrade is intended to provide a huge number of new individual addresses for computers and other devices to be registered on the Internet but, it is also meant to provide other technological upgrades. The Wikipedia article on IPv6 provides an excellent summary of these benefits.
What does this mean to you in the near future? Not very much except for technical managers purchasing new networking equipment. But over time the upgrade provides an improved foundation for the growth of the Net.

NCSC Partners With Lockheed Martin for FBI Project

Press Release:

On February 12th, 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) awarded Lockheed Martin a ten-year, $1 billion contract today to develop and maintain the Bureau’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system, a multi-modal, state-of–the-art biometrics system for use by state, local and federal authorities. The Lockheed Martin-led team includes Accenture, BAE Systems Information Technology Inc., Global Science & Technology (GST), Innovative Management & Technology Services (IMTS), Platinum Solutions and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC). 

"The NGI system will expand fingerprint capacity, doubling the size of the current database, and will now also include palm prints, iris and facial recognition capabilities.  Additionally, the system requires a significant degree of technical flexibility in order to accommodate other biometric modalities that may mature and become important to law enforcement efforts in the future."

InnovAction Award Competition Announced

From our friend Andy Atkins at the University of Florida Levin College of Law:

The College of Law Practice Management is excited to announce the "official" launch of our 2008 InnovAction Awards.  We are looking for lawyers, law firms, and other deliverers of legal services who are engaged in some extraordinary innovative efforts.  The goal of the Awards is to demonstrate to the legal community what can be created when passionate professionals with big ideas are determined to solve the business challenges faced in today’s competitive markets.

Award entries will be judged on the basis of four primary criteria:

1.  Absence of precedent (never been done or done quite this way before) 2.  Evidence of action (the innovative idea was transformed into action and not merely reflective of best intentions) 3.  Effectiveness of innovation (there is some measurable outcome that indicates the innovation is accomplishing what it was intended to do) 4.  Action must have taken place within no more than three years prior to this entry.

Any lawyer, law firm, or entity providing legal services to clients anywhere in the world is eligible.  Further information about the awards, past winners, eligibility rules, and entry forms are
available at www.innovactionaward.com.  

The 2008 InnovAction Awards are sponsored by the following organizations and companies which have a passion for innovation.

Platinum Sponsors: Australian Lawyers Weekly and Greenfield/Belser Ltd.
Gold Sponsors: ABA Law Practice Management Section; The Canadian Bar Association; International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) and Levick Strategic Communications.
Silver Sponsors: Altman Weil, Inc.; Association of Legal Administrators and Project Leadership Associates.