Virus attack takes down court – what can be done?

We learned that the Philadelphia courts and their E-filing system have been brought down with a computer virus attack.  And the attack has not resulted in a data breach or ransomware installation (unlike Baltimore City government). 

We wish them the best for a complete recovery and want to share some thoughts on how one might prepare and recover from this problem.

E-Filing Gets Serious in New Jersey

Photo: Andreas Praefcke [CC BY 3.0 ]

We learned from a Law.com article that the New Jersey Appellate Court had affirmed an order enforcing an arbitration award after the plaintiff’s lawyer “failed to use New Jersey’s eCourts system to electronically file its demand for a trial de novo and to pay the filing fee”.  Discussion follows below.

Courthouse Wi-Fi Access and New Tech Standards

An article last month in Government Technology magazine’s website titled “Court Calls for Wi-Fi to Comply with N.Y. Digital Evidence Rule” got me thinking that the world is probably changing in terms of courthouse Internet access.  The following post will list/discuss some of the court's policies and rules along with some new Wi-Fi standards that are being implemented.

LegalXML Electronic Court Filing 5.0 Standard Approved

OASIS is pleased to announce that Electronic Court Filing Version 5.0 (ECF) from the OASIS LegalXML Electronic Court Filing Technical Committee [1] has been approved as an OASIS Committee Specification.  (ed note: the committee has been working on this for years BTW.)

ECF defines a technical architecture and a set of components, operations and message structures for an electronic court filing system, and sets forth rules governing its implementation. Version 5.0 provides a number of enhancements including:

A Barrel Full of Court Tech News

It is spring flower season and so we share an analogous bounty of court tech in the following post.  Included are news about CTC registration, more reminder systems benefits, New Mexico's new open legal online access system, China court blockchain, and AI projects, Amal and George Clooney's TrialWatch app, Kansas Supreme Court's E-Filing rules review, and paper savings in the England and Wales courts.

Bob Roper

We have some sad news to share in this post.  Our good friend and former NCSC colleague, Bob Roper has passed.  The following notes are from friends who wish to share their stories about this true court technology pioneer.

From O. John Kuenhold:

Bob served as CIO of the Colorado Courts from 1992 until he resigned in September 2011. Bob’s leadership and vision initiated the long transition of the Branch into the world of electronic files, filing and the continuing development of a next-gen case management system. Bob was a founding member of CITOC and served for a decade on the COSCA-NACM Joint Technology Committee of the National Center for State Courts where he championed the role of technology in improving the quality of service to the public by the courts. Bob was a frequent presenter and panelist at the NCSC Court Technology Conferences E-Courts Conferences for 20 years.

McMillan Court Technology Conference Scholarship Available

Jose Lezcano, 2017 winner and Jim McMillan

The National Center for State Courts is pleased to announce a call for applications for the James E. McMillan Award (McMillan Award) for Innovation in Court Technology. The winner, selected by a committee of court technology experts, will receive a full scholarship to attend CTC 2019 in New Orleans, LA, September 10-12, 2019. This full scholarship includes a waiver of conference registration, four nights accommodation at a conference hotel, and round-trip travel expenses. The approximate value of this scholarship is $2,000.

The web page with full details is available at: https://courttechnologyconference.org/ctc-2019-scholarship-award-announcement/

The due date for submission is Monday, June 17, 2019.

Please Fix Your MS Word Court Forms

Warning, old guy (get off my lawn) rant follows...  Many of the Microsoft Word forms courts provide on their websites ARE NOT real forms.  The thing that makes me especially crazy is when one enters data on the line provided … the line extends/wraps.  Then I have to waste time to shorten the line and re-underline what I typed.  That said, we share what we think that courts should be doing below.

Farewell to Richard Zorza and More Court Tech News

We have sad news regarding the passing of access to justice pioneer, Richard Zorza as well as news from the Ninth Judicial Circuit in Orange County/Orlando Florida, more online services announce by the BC Civil Resolution Tribunal, some notes on courtroom technology and the Microsoft Surface Hub 2S.

25 Facts About AI & Law

Earlier this week I read the article “25 facts about AI & Law you always wanted to know (but were afraid to ask) by Micha Grupp at Medium.com.   I think it is an important article; and I want to post a summary and recommend that, if you are interested, read the entire article as it applied to the courts as well.

Mr. Grupp starts the article by stating:

“In law, AI is still all the talk. Most of it is slightly or utterly incorrect. Discoveries in recent years have little impact on the automation of legal work and the legal industry. Legal reasoning is different from other fields— technology should reflect this.”

I agree and so here is the very brief summary of the sections of his article.