South Carolina Courts Seeks IT Director

We learned today that the job announcement for the South Carolina Judicial Department IT Director has been released. The closing date for application is September 9, 2016.  The announcement job responsibilities description starts:

"Under limited supervision, the Director of Information Technology is a member of the executive management team and is responsible for providing leadership in the development of technology solutions to support SCJD's mission, goals, and objectives."

The full job announcement with submission instructions is available online here.

This and That in Court Technology – August 2016

In this edition of "This and That" we share E-Courts conference updates, US Federal Courts updating their E-filing rules, IJIS Institute Mid-Year Update Meeting, the ABA Future of Legal Services report, information regarding the new Microsoft Two-Step Authentication app, and last a handy home improvement app I recently used.

Storage, SSD’s and the Future of Court Records

A recent article stated “SSD prices plummet again, close in on HDD”.  Translated that means that solid state “flash” storage that runs much faster than traditional hard disk drives (HDD’s) is closing in on price parity.  But what does this mean for court records?  We discuss and speculate below.

Judge John Tanzer and eJudiciary

Our good friend, Sir Henry Brooke posted an excellent post on the impact that fellow jurist John Tanzer had on the adoption of IT in the English courts.

EOIR RFI Q&A Deadline for Questions and Responses Extended

The US Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review RFI has extended the date and time for accepting question until Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 2:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

The deadline for responses has been extended to Monday, August 15, 2016.at 2:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

For more on the RFI see our earlier post at: https://courttechbulletin.blogspot.com/2016/07/rfi-issued-for-us-department-of-justice.html 

More Developments in Blockchain Technology and the Law

Blockchain technology or as it is also known as, “distributed ledger”, is the subject of a great deal of thinking and development this year.  We wrote about it earlier in the year and now we share some recent work being done at MIT Media Lab’s lawchain.org project.

Connecting the E-Filing “Pipes”

Craig VanBrussel, CTO for the First Judicial Circuit of Florida wrote after listening to the recent online Court Tech Futures webinar about how they are closing the loop with their E-filing pipes.

RFI Issued for US Department of Justice EOIR

ZYGOS Consulting (ZYGOS) in conjunction with the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) in support of the ECAS Program has issued a Request for Information for the US Department of Justice Executive Office of Immigration Review. (https://www.justice.gov/eoir )   

US Federal Judiciary Cites Technology for Efficiency

US Federal Courthouse in Denver

In a press release on July 6, 2016 the US Federal Courts cited multiple court technology initiatives as part of their overall efficiency and cost reduction strategy.

Webinar and Other News – July, 2016

News about a free court tech webinar, more on CMS events and decisions, Margaret Hagan on Legal Services Bots, and a couple of security warnings.