Some Court Tech News and Notes – March 2019

https://www.neworleans.com/

This month we share some notes about CTC-2019, Connecticut Probate Court E-filing, a great blockchain article, transcription in Africa, text messaging programs, and some both bad and interesting England & Wales Court IT news. 

Akoma Ntoso Naming Convention Adopted as an OASIS-Open Standard

Edited from a press release received on March 5, 2019.

The OASIS LegalXML LegalDocML Technical Committee has achieved adoption of Akoma Ntoso markup structure of use “of XML within a Parliaments', Assembly's or Congress' document management processes, within courts' and tribunals' judgment management systems, and generally in legal documents including contracts.”

CTC 2019 Call for Proposals

We want to hear from you! The Court Technology Conference will feature multiple education tracks providing opportunities to learn about practical applications of technology and innovation in several topic areas. We are reaching out to the court community for session ideas that encourage teams of administrators, technologists, and judges to attend the conference. 

The deadline is March 15, 2019.

Comic Book Contracts

https://creative-contracts.com/

At the recent Innovating Justice Forum, I had the great honor of meeting South African lawyer Robert de Rooy who created the idea of Comic Book Contracts to allow “an illiterate person to understand their” employment contract.  While this is a technology blog, this is such a powerful idea I had to share it with our readers to think about in regard to both paper and online agreement systems.  More below…

This and That in Court Tech – February 2019

https://goo.gl/NZgsos

This month we write about legislative support for court notification systems, BC’s new ODR system, a thought piece on AI helping to overcome judicial bias, a new Florida Bar natural language AI system, an ABA report on technology for non-lawyers, and an interesting report on understanding justice needs.

Court Technology Conference 2019

Registration for CTC 2019 to be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from September 10-12, 2019 is now open. Register now and you get the Early Bird rate.

NCSC’s Court Technology Conference (CTC) is the largest court technology conference in the world. Sign up now to join more than 1,500 court professionals in New Orleans for three days of learning, training, and networking at one of the most advanced court technology exhibit shows.

ODR Forum 2019-Call for Presentations

Are you an Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) professional or academic? Are you part of an organization that utilizes ODR? Do you design, develop, or implement ODR solutions? Do you study and measure ODR? The International ODR Forum 2019 to be held in Williamsburg, Virginia on October 29-30, 2019 needs you!

18 Ways Courts Should Use Technology to Better Serve their Customers

Back in October 2018, we see that our good friend and former NCSC colleague, John Greacen released the above-titled report issued by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver.  We briefly summarize below…

Multi-Use Jury Assembly Rooms?

https://allaccesssys.com/jury-assembly-rooms/ 

For many years we have looked for ways to be able to “reuse jury assembly rooms”. Many jury assembly rooms consume a significant floorspace in courthouses simply because they need to be able to seat large numbers of persons at one time.  But the seating requirement is often only needed a few times per week or even per month.  Therefore, we have looked for ways to be able to easily divide these large spaces so that they can be used for other purposes.  A possible solution to the “dividing room problem” presented itself when I saw the Skyfold system.  n this post, I want to share some ideas as to how one might be able to apply it to your current or new courthouse.

This and That in Court Tech – January 2019

In this edition, we share information about a new court use of social media report, mobile video conferencing and identity verification, Connecticut Probate Court E-Filing, digital blockchain marriage certificates, an excellent self-help center website, and an upcoming conference.

eCourts 2018 Conference Session Videos Now Available

Roosevelt Sawyer, Chief Information Officer,
Florida Office of the State Courts Administrator

The video recordings for the great eCourts 2018 conference are now available for streaming here.

We are very pleased to be able to share the following list of excellent sessions below.

A Court Robot Mashup Idea

Some of you might remember the 1970’s and 80’s USA television commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup candy where the tagline was “You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” 

I think I have a similar “mashup” idea for using robots in the courts.  I explain below.

NCSC Announces the ODR Industry Summit

The ODR Industry Summit is an opportunity for technology leaders to engage in free-flowing discussion with court leaders from across the United States from March 4-5, 2019 in Denver, Colorado

The objective of this day and a half event is to provide the industry with insights on the current and emerging ODR needs of the courts over the next several years. Working side by side, court and industry technology leaders will identify business problems, brainstorm opportunities, and chart a course for future ODR use in the courts. 

Registration for this event is complimentary.

Airfare assistance may be available for international firms interested in entering the US market.

The full conference announcement (PDF) with location and hotel details is available here.

Georgia Issues RFI for an ADR Module

The Georgia Commission on Dispute Resolution has released an RFI an alternative dispute resolution module.

The ADR Module RFI is a state and local partnership between JC/AOC and the Commission created to achieve optimal pricing for replacement technology software which does not exist or has reached its end of life.

A Few eCourts 2018 Highlights

We are back from the eCourts 2018 Conference held last week in Las Vegas.  There were many great educational sessions and, I will share below some of the ones that I found interesting.  But also, please note that all the sessions were video recorded.  The NCSC team is working to put them online. I will write a note here when they are available.  So here goes…

eCourts 2018 Preview Podcast

ImageSoft interviewed our own Vice President, Jesse Rutledge for their Paperless Process Podcast earlier this week.  They write:

We had the opportunity to pull Jesse away from his own podcast for a bit of our own “court talk” about all things eCourts 2018, including the hot-button “rebooting justice” discussion, the component model, the evolution of the eCourts conference, and how to join the eCourts conversations even if you can’t attend. This is a can’t-miss episode for anyone with their thumb on the pulse of our nation’s court system.

Click here to navigate to the podcast web page.

Council of Europe adopts first European Ethical Charter on the use of artificial intelligence in judicial systems

In a press release on December 4, 2018:

The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of Europe has adopted the first European text setting out ethical principles relating to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in judicial systems.

The Charter provides a framework of principles that can guide policymakers, legislators and justice professionals when they grapple with the rapid development of AI in national judicial processes.

This and That in Court Technology – November 2018

Microsoft Surface Hub 2

With the “sold out” eCourts 2018 conference upon us, it is time to share news about the Best Legal Apps for 2018, the LegalXML Electronic Court Filing standards, the timing for Public Access to Civil Court Filings, another Judicial analytics tool, using GitHub for law text markup and access, and as you can see in the picture, a new Microsoft Surface Hub system.

Plain Language Forms Implemented by the Abu Dhabi Courts

Abu Dhabi Courthouses

We heard late last month from our friend, Mohamed Hesham Elrafei of the Abu Dhabi Courts about their new initiative with plan language forms and documents.  He writes and credits several contributors to the ideas they used in their new applications.  He writes:

How not to do it: Videoconferencing Edition

I had the great pleasure of participating in a group study meeting on the use of videoconferencing (aka telepresence) in the justice system this past week.  One of our good friends from Texas sent me the following story from the Houston Chronicle newspaper from this past February.  While the issues presented regarding money bail release are worthy of discussion elsewhere, I must comment on the technical setup shown in the accompanying video.

New Secure and Technologically Advanced Courthouse Opened

https://goo.gl/5ymTeK

We learned via the US Federal Courts newsletter and video about the new courthouse that opened in Mobile, Alabama.

The newsletter says:

“A new federal courthouse has been formally unveiled in Mobile, Alabama, featuring improved safety and access for the public and improvements in information technology.

StateTech Magazine Recognizes the Court Technology Bulletin

We are honored to share the news that the Court Technology Bulletin has been included in the “30 Must-Read State and Local IT Blogs 2018”

The article recommends that government IT workers “(F)ollow these blogs to stay current on the latest news and trends for state government, smart cities, first responders, public libraries, courts and more.”

And we agree that there are several interesting blogs listed in the article.

Thanks go out to StateTech Magazine for the recognition. 

E-Filing/Imaging and Large Files

In a recent project, I set a system rule for e-filing file sizes not being bigger than 20-megabytes upload into the document management system. 

Why am I against these “Jumbo” files?  I explain below…

Practical Augmented Reality Appears

Available at Amazon 

We learned via my colleague, and ace support technician, Charlie Sillery along with a press release of the TeamViewer  Pilot augmented reality solution to see and guide people in remote locations to help them fix their problems.

But before we start, here is a PC Magazine article about the difference between virtual reality and augmented reality.  We discuss the later below…

Electronic Archives and Microfilm

While Block Chain, AI, and GDPR are new and exciting, sometimes we need to talk about older technology.  Most of it is paper which has its own set of challenges.  But microfilm has been the court archiving standard since at least the 1950’s in many jurisdictions.  Should it still be used?  If so, can it be made more useful?  We discuss below.