Webinar: What are we learning about remote hearings?

 

Thursday, April 14th, 2022 03:00 pm - 04:30 pm

Join five leading NCSC experts for a 60-minute briefing that will distill recent NCSC research on remote hearings. Panelists will draw on new studies—from analyzing judicial time in Texas to considerations in child welfare cases to judicially led diversion programs—to summarize critical “aha!” moments about remote proceedings. The speakers will draw together what NCSC is learning about where remote proceedings make sense, where challenges may exist and what lessons can be drawn from the research to date.

This and That in Court Tech– April 2022

 

 

Tiny Chat fun is one subject this month

This month’s compilation includes concerns about court order forgery, the IJIS symposium, a court on-demand training program, Tiny Chat on post-pandemic planning, Microsoft autopatch is coming, and the JTC seminar on cyber security, using two-way messaging to reduce FTA’s, and service expansion by Judicial Innovations.

 

Apple Launches the First Smartphone Driver’s License/ID with Arizona

 

 

  

Apple launches the first smartphone driver’s license/ID with Arizona

Additional states to follow, including Colorado, Hawaii, Mississippi, Ohio, and the territory of Puerto Rico

 

 

Webinar: JTC’s Cybersecurity Basics

 

When? March 28, 2022 from 3:00 to 4:00 PM EDT

Unlike webinars, cyberattacks don’t happen on a schedule. That’s why you should carve out some time now to prepare for the unexpected. Join leaders from the Joint Technology Committee (JTC) for the second in a series of webinars that will get you ready should your court suffer a data breach or a ransomware attack. Take advantage of this series to get prepared, and plan as if an attack is inevitable.

Quality Program Results in Case Processing Improvement

From the US Federal Court News on March 8, 2022.

“On March 3, the Clerk’s Office" for the Court of Appeals Federal Circuit in Washington DC was recognized for its innovation when it received an award and certification from the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Government Division, an organization that objectively evaluates the quality of government operations.”

Our Clerk’s Office is the first government entity to achieve this certification, which makes it the standard which other government organizations, especially other court offices, can look to as the benchmark for exceptional performance,” said Chief Judge Kimberly A. Moore, of the Federal Circuit. “We take great pride in the accomplishments of our Clerk’s Office”

E-Filing Pioneer Judge, James Mehaffy, Jr. Passes

 

© 2007 Larry D. Moore. Licensed
under CC BY-SA 3.0 https://bit.ly/343Giyq

A couple of weeks back we learned that retired Texas District Court Judge James Mehaffy, Jr. had passed away.

I had the honor of knowing and working with the Judge and visiting his court in Beaumont, Texas.  In the early 1990’s the NCSC had both the Court Technology Laboratory and Courtroom 21 projects running in Williamsburg.  Judge Mehaffy brought a team from his court that was planning on how to deal with a very large and complex series of civil trials.  At the time the plan was to convert the jury assembly room of the courthouse into a courtroom to handle the large number of lawyers who would be present.

Court Tech News and Notes for February 2022

 

Slow and steady wins the court tech race

This post includes news about court text messaging in Colorado, a TurboCourt anniversary, nine justice reform programs to review, some free court subject public service announcements, a study on remote hearings costs and benefits, and innovations from the HiiL Demo Day 2022.

Request for Proposal: AOC-Sponsored Statewide eFiling System

https://bit.ly/3gSQTyQ

The Nevada Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), a judicial branch department that assists the Supreme Court of Nevada with the administration of the Nevada courts, invites submissions of offers for systems and services for a statewide cloud‐based, COTS electronic filing system, a document access system, a redaction component, and a forms assembly solution (“eFiling system” or “Solution”). (Master Services Agreement to follow later)

Webinar: Tales from the cyber-frontlines: Lessons from lived experiences

 

This webinar is set for Monday, February 28 - 3–4 p.m. EST

Did you know that the average cost of recovery from a cybersecurity incident is close to $4 million? If your court has security staff and a magnetometer— but doesn’t have a cybersecurity incident response team—our Cyber Monday webinar series is for you!

Join leaders from the Joint Technology Committee (JTC) for its first Cyber Monday webinar series on Feb. 28. You'll learn about CCJ/COSCA's recently adopted resolution and concrete action steps to address cybersecurity risks. You'll also hear how court leaders in Texas and Alaska dealt with their own cyberattacks.

eCourts 2022 Call for Proposals

 

This year's eCourts will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, December 5-7 at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino. 

We are reaching out to the court community to identify session ideas that highlight progress and innovation and that will encourage teams of administrators, technologists, and judges to attend. 

Microsoft Mesh Augmented Reality for Courtroom Evidence

 

As most of you already know much of the "big technology news" for the first part of 2022 has been the announcements around "the metaverse".  

While it is fun in many gaming situations, I think there is also a possibility of using it effectively in courtroom evidence presentations in the future.  We discuss below how some versions might be useful in the courtroom.

This and That in Court Tech - January 2022

 

Image by Brad Stallcup https://stocksnap.io

This month we have news about Chromebook price drops, Trinidad and Tobago’s new court electronic practice directions, Illinois state courts new electronic device policy, a new ODR system provided by the Los Angeles County courts, the England and Wales judiciary taking a new data-driven strategy approach, an article on “How to Create Access-to-Justice Tech for Courts That People Will Actually Use” and the latest from our Tiny Chat team.

Minnesota Legal Kiosk Project

 

Thanks to a tweet from attorney Mark C. Palmer we learned today about this Minnesota project that started last year.

The project issued the following press release on May 3, 2021. 

Online Seminar: Tips for Conducting Remote and Hybrid Hearings with Self-represented Litigants

 

When? Thursday, January 20, 3:00 pm ET

Addressing the digital divide. Communicating scheduling changes. Providing legal information in layman’s terms on court websites. Managing the waiting room. Since the start of the pandemic, courts across the country have adapted their processes to allow for remote and virtual proceedings. Join us for the next discussion in a series of webinars focused on best practices for engaging with attorneys and self-represented litigants in remote and virtual hearings.

Prerecorded Videotaped Trials

 

With news that jury trials are being delayed once again due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is useful to resurrect some early court technology used by the Erie County Common Pleas Court, General Division in Sandusky, Ohio from the '70s and later.

The following is a report that my NCSC colleagues, Peggy A. Walsh and Kevin P. Kilpatrick, Staff Associate published as part of the Court Technology Reports, 1990 publication available in PDF in our Library eCollection here.

If you read this article, please remember that this was done in the time of analog (meaning tape) recording media and way before the internet was generally available to the public and the courts. It is much easier to accomplish this in 2022 and therefore the core concepts are worth considering and updating as another potential tool for court trials. 

Self-Help Information by the Courts in 2021

We were curious as to the status of online court help to the self-represented litigants as a good 2021 year-end wrapup article for the CTB?  We share what we found below.

In addition, we just learned of a new NIJ study on the use of Chatbots in the Criminal Justice System to add to our list of online helpers.  

Measuring Access to Justice

 

I stumbled across two outstanding articles on how to measure Access to Justice.  The first article is a summary posted on Medium.com by Ms. Rachel Wang that analyzes the second by Mr. Hugh McDonald UC Irvine Law Review article titled “Assessing Access to Justice: How Much “Legal” Do People Need and How Can We Know? 

In short, why has it taken this long to ask the questions posed in these articles?

New Tools to Use Documents as a Data Source

 

Continuing the general theme of earlier CTB articles here, here, and here on using documents as the database for context, analysis, and data entry; we saw an article from Infoworld.com today that lists tools by AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Document AI that “can parse your unstructured documents and produce structured information for all kinds of digital transformation use cases”.

Bankers Share Plans for Expanding Financial Services for Justice System Involved Persons

 

From "not the usual ABA (American Bar Association)" the courts normally hear from, it is good to know that the Bankers are thinking about the criminal justice system.  The American Bankers Association share via press release on November 10 2021 their new whitepaper.

Beam (my language) up, Simultaneous Interpretation Feature Added to Virtual Proceedings Platforms

Created by Yu luck, Noun Project

By Konstantina Vagenas, NCSC

At the onset of the pandemic, courts pivoted overnight to virtual hearings to comply with health and safety guidelines.  Court interpreters were required to provide their services remotely via court-approved and licensed videoconferencing platforms. Among these, WebEx and Zoom were the most common. The major challenge in these proceedings was the absence of an integrated, simultaneous interpretation channel, which interpreters overcame by adding an additional audio device, usually a personal mobile phone—a suboptimal solution.  Within a few weeks, the court interpreting world was abuzz with the advantages offered by Zoom’s embedded simultaneous court interpreting channels. Like characters in Star Trek, interpreters were being “beamed up” to virtual courtrooms.

Webinars, Videos, and Bears Oh My!

 

Just kidding about the Bears.  There have been a lot of training and information sessions posted online lately plus some court pandemic response training and ODR news.  Check it out below.

Nevada AOC Issues CMS RFP

The Nevada Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), a judicial branch department that assists the Supreme Court of Nevada with the administration of the Nevada courts, invites submissions of offers for up-to-three AOC-sponsored, integrated, comprehensive, case management system(s) (CMS) and associated implementation services in compliance with the requirements and terms set forth in this RFP.

Please see; https://nvcourts.gov/AOC/Procurements/ for details. Vendors, please monitor the webpage for updates. The deadline for submission of offers is December 13, 2021, at 3:00 PM Pacific Time.

The IJIS Courts Advisory Committee (ICAC) Presents Digital Evidence Training Event

 

Via press release from the IJIS Institute:

Over the past several years, our society has seen an influx of advanced technology solutions that have made available a tsunami of structured and unstructured data about our lives, our public safety, and our disputes. As a result, law enforcement, prosecutors, defense counsels, the private bar, and the courts are all faced with an abundant amount of data (both relevant and irrelevant) for investigations, discovery, and court cases. The collection of this data ultimately requires a great deal of time and effort by public safety and criminal justice practitioners globally. How should our law enforcement and court communities adapt to this increased demand for the collection, vetting, management, and sharing of digital evidence?

This and That in Court Technology - October 2021

 

Fall leaves via https://bit.ly/3vPp959

In this months post, we share news and notes from Tiny Chat on Text Messaging, a very nice online forms website from Washington state, news regarding a new US federal judiciary vulnerability policy, news of good work being done by the District Court in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, practical information on PDF file formats from the US Library of Congress, and a last-minute call for participation in the annual Trends in State Courts report.

High Court of Japan to host Intellectual Property Symposium

 

The Intellectual Property High Court of Japan (IPHC), together with several other legal organizations, annually holds their Judicial Symposium on Intellectual Property (JSIP).  This year, JSIP 2021 will be held online from October 20 through 22(JST).

More below…

Some Practical Advice on File Naming Conventions

 

Continuing with our practical advice October...

Courts create a lot of document files.  Some of those files get uploaded, saved, and organized in the court's case management or electronic document management systems.  And some courts use tools like SharePoint.  But even these tools can benefit from a consistent useful file naming standard.  I looked online and found two excellent pages on the subject. 

More below…

Authentication, E-Signatures. and Signet Rings

 A recent Law.com article noted the wider adoption of e-signatures by lawyers (you know, our court users). But what is the historic basis for this?  Signet rings. We discuss this below...

 

Closing the Electronic Loop and Automating Processes Along the Way

 

John Gustafson & Jim McMillan at CTC2021

We are happy to share the winner of the CTC McMillan Scholarship, John Gustafson, Data Quality Manager, First Judicial Circuit of Florida.  I was happy to meet John at the conference and learn more about his great work for the court.  His award winning submission follows.  

How to Get the Most from CTC2021 with Exhibitors and Sponsors

 

Exhibitors and sponsors are a fundamental part of the CTC experience.

There are dozens of booths in the exhibit hall.  One can plan your in-person visit with our online exhibit hall map so you don’t miss anything.

Online attendees will be able to reach out to exhibitors via our NCSC app during the conference. It is recommended that you download and install (or update) the app prior to the conference starting on September 28^th so you don’t miss anything.

Our sponsors have also prepared some top-tier education sessions that shouldn’t be missed. The sessions will cover a broad range of subjects, including virtual solutions, inclusivity, mitigating user expectations, artificial intelligence, pretrial software, and futureproofing your court.

We’re looking forward to seeing you in Columbus and online!

 

Thoughts on Notes

 

https://bit.ly/3luAySV

As has happened many times in the past I was prompted by the most recent NCSC Tiny Chat on the Hawai’i Online Dispute Resolution system that preparing notes on one’s legal issue in dispute could be useful?  That got me to look at what web-based notes applications are available? There are a lot!

Court Tech News and Notes for September 2021

 

September means “back to school” days.  Learning for my court tech friends includes CourtStack CMS training, the upcoming LegalXML Electronic Court Filing (ECF) face to face meeting at CTC 2021, planning for new Microsoft Teams capabilities, and Ontario’s new legal innovation regulatory sandbox project.

 

Register for CTC2021 Livestream Access Today

 

Registration for livestream access is ready. If you’re planning to attend CTC 2021 online, now’s the time to sign up. Here’s how it works.

We recognize that not everyone is able to travel to Columbus, so we’re excited to share that registration for livestream access is ready. If you’re planning to attend CTC 2021 online, now’s the time to sign up. 

Here’s how it works.

Texas Awards Statewide CMS Contracts

 

Presidio County Courthouse

 

Via press release, August 31, 2021 – The Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA) announced today that it has selected three vendors to support Texas’ new statewide Uniform Case Management System (UCMS). The system is an opt-in court case management system aimed at supporting Texas counties with a population less than 20,000 which equates to over half of the state’s 254 Counties.

More…

New Legal Document Tools Announced

 

MaxPixel.net

Documents are the summer wheat that we make our court case bread (final product) from.  We have two interesting announcements to share in this week’s post from The Effectiveness Project and LegalXML LegalRuleML.

 

CTC-2021 Complete Conference Schedule Updated

 

Conference staff has been hard at work working out the details of CTC 2021. Those details include getting the schedule organized. Today, we’re pleased to announce the conference schedule has been updated with session and track information.

Click here to see the new schedule.

This and That in Court Technology, August 2021

 

In this month’s collection of notes we have news about an online forms creation website, punishment for abuse of social media by posting a judge's personal information, ideas for "engineering gatherings", New Mexico finishing their statewide E-filing implementation project, the new NCSC's Courthouse Retrospective report, CCJ/COSCA support for remote and virtual hearings, and a cool new data tool.

Reminders Work!

 

Irving Texas work “in recent years to improve its municipal court’s Failure to Appear (FTA) rate shows what is possible when cities invest in foundational data practices and use data-driven evaluations to test and fine-tune new approaches.”

The article posted in Medium.com WhatWorksCity subsite explains why Irving focused on this problem.

West Virginia Issues RFP for CMS/EDMS/E-Filing

  

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia is issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) to acquire an electronic court case management solution comprised of case management, document management, and e-file management systems for the new Intermediate Court of Appeals created in 2021 by the West Virginia Legislature.  

The initial focus of the project will be on the new court with the possibility of future expansion to other levels of the West Virginia Judiciary. The deadline for submission is October 1, 2021. Please click on the link provided below to access the West Virginia Judiciary Request for Proposals Webpage.

http://www.courtswv.gov/court-administration/request-for-proposals.html

 

Text Analytics, Court Stats, and Privacy

 

A couple of weeks ago I shared some of “my problems with pending case statistics”.  Before that, I posted another note regarding an alternative for analyzing criminal justice data.  I generally try not to complain about things without having a solution in mind.  In this article, I will share the idea of using text analytics to work with a court’s largest data source, case documents, and reports.

CTC2021 Keynote Speaker - Peter Warren Singer Announced

 

We’re happy to announce this year’s keynote speaker, Peter Warren Singer. Named one of the nation’s 100 leading innovators by Smithsonian Magazine, Singer is a notable influencer, global thinker, and “mad scientist” by organizations including Defense News, Foreign Policy, and the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.

A strategist and senior fellow at the think tank New America, Singer is an award-winning author of novels and non-fiction books about military privatization, robotics, the weaponization of social media, and cyberwar and cybersecurity.

Some Great NCSC Tiny Chat Sessions

 

My friends in the NCSC Tiny Chat Division, have been doing some terrific work lately. Here is a selection of some interesting and fun sessions.

 

CTC2021 Scholarship Applications Sought

 

2015 finalists:: Cynthia Marr, Audrey Jun, and Chris Lundquist

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 2021 in Columbus, OH, September 28-29, 2021.  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.

More...

 

Education is Core to CTC

 

The National Center for State Courts is excited to deliver the ideas, information, and strategies to put technology to work in our courts. Education is the reason we host the Court Technology Conference. As usual, we’re featuring multiple education tracks covering practical applications of technology and innovation. This year, there’s a particular focus on what we can learn from our pandemic experiences.

A New NCSC ODR Evaluation Measures Report

 

NCSC Releases Evaluation and Performance Measures Framework for Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Programs

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state courts accelerated efforts to implement online dispute resolution (ODR) programs that offer litigants a software platform in which to resolve legal problems, including negotiating settlements or exchanging information in preparation for in-court hearings.  

Why I Hate "Pending Case" Statistics?

 

One of my more strongly held observations from working with court data is the statistical perceptions of case backlogs, or “pending cases” as they are generally used are simply wrong.  I think that this is because they often do not really describe the court’s caseload situation.  I explain...

 

50th Anniversary of the NCSC

Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the incorporation of the National Center for State Courts.  The "founding moment happened on March 11, 1971.  

Our press release said:

"It was 50 years ago — March 11, 1971 — that the First National Conference on the Judiciary opened at the Williamsburg Conference Center in Williamsburg, Virginia.

A Plan for the Federal Courts CM/ECF

 

Alpine Texas Federal Courthouse

The US Government General Services Administration’s 18F Team performed an “11-week Path Analysis on the federal judiciary’s Case Management and Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system. Our research focused on user needs, business agility, organization and processes, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts’ (AO) culture and legal mandates.”

We discuss below.

 

Nevada Appellate Courts CIO Position Announced

 

Full details and application are available through NeoGov  The posting closes on June 25, 2021.

The Chief Information Officer’s (CIO) role is to provide vision and leadership for identifying, acquiring and implementing information technologies for the Nevada Appellate Courts.  The CIO consults and collaborates with the State Court Administrator/Director of the AOC, Clerk of Court, Supreme Court Justices, the Judicial Council Technology Committee, Supreme Court IT Steering Committee, and other committees as necessary to develop statewide information technology policies, strategies, and standards. 

15 Months

 

Abraham Lincoln as a young lawyer

Stating the obvious, since March 2020 we have seen massive changes in court and work/office organization and communications.  The pandemic forced changes to process, office, and data design that embrace the new virtual environment.  But first, we must discuss some pushback.