Chris Caposella to be CTC9 Keynoter

One of the presentations that I am most looking forward to at CTC9 is Wednesday morning's keynote address by Chris Capossela of Microsoft. He is currently the Corporate Vice President, Information Worker Product Management Group, which means he is in charge of the new version of Microsoft Office. Because this software is such an overwhelming standard in business and government, any change to this technology is significant. The new version of Office completely embraces the use of XML technology as an integral part of the software. Because of the possibilities such as easier integration between documents and court case management databases, I am very much looking forward to his talk.

PDF for Lawyers Web Site

Wandering around the web today I found a blog called PDF for Lawyers. It has good information generally about PDF files and has links to information about digital signatures, scanners for lawyers, and, most interesting, PDF redaction

Federal Judicial Center Weighted Caseload Study

While doing some work last week I stumbled upon the Federal Judicial Center's Weighted Caseload Study web page. This study was the first to use the courts automated case management system to compile event information from over 297,000 cases. The entire report and more importantly, documents relating to the methodology are posted.

NCSC Court Technology Survey

The National Center for State Courts needs your help. In preparation for the Ninth Court Technology Conference and to provide information directly to you for use in CITOC, we ask that you participate in our first comprehensive online court technology survey. As you know, technology has had a significant impact upon court operations and organization during the past decade. But there has not been a comprehensive survey to determine which and where courts have made these changes.

Our aim is to collect this information this summer, analyze it, and make it available at CTC9 and shortly thereafter online. The survey is self-compiling and so we will be able to make the full raw data set available. We believe that the subsequent report will provide you with a resource as to what courts are investing in technology. Hopefully this will assist you in connecting with courts with similar technology and plans for the future.

For those of you who are on statewide court systems, please note that your state CIO/IT director has previously been contacted. However, we still need information about your courtroom and related technology implementations.

The survey will take approximately 30-40 minutes to complete. If you wish to download a complete copy of the survey in preparation (advised), a PDF version is available.

(The online survey is no longer available.)

If you should have any questions, please feel free to contact Jim McMillan at the National Center for State Courts at jmcmillan@ncsc.dni.us

Israel's New Court Automation System

Microsoft has posted a white paper and slide show on Israel's new court automation program. They write: "the Israeli Court House Management is replacing the manual administration of hardcopy documents used by Israel's courts with a paperless system. Electronic versions of all documents submitted to and issued by the courts will be created using optical character recognition (OCR). Known as the Next Generation Court System (NGCS), the solution will allow lawyers and the public to research case documents 24 hours a day."

AIJA Conference Announcement

Our friend Anne Wallace at the Australian Institute for Judicial Administration passed along this announcement for their next conference:

AIJA Annual Conference, 7-9 October 2005, Wellington, New Zealand

This year, the AIJA will return to New Zealand for its 23rd Annual AIJA Conference. The theme for the conference will be 'Technology, Communication, Innovation,' with a focus on issues arising from the use of the technology in courts and tribunals - in particular, the delivery of electronic services, communication with the media and the public, privacy and access to data, transformation of business processes, and computer-simulated evidence in the courtroom.

CATO Reminder

Mike Adams, Treasurer for the Conference of Appellate Technology Officials sent us a reminder to register for their annual conference as soon as possible! The conference will take place in Key West, Florida, August 5th - 8th, 2005 in conjunction with the National Conference of Appellate Court Clerks. Registration is $350 and the registration form and agenda are both available on their website.

The conference will be held at the Wyndham Casa Marina Resort. For hotel reservations using their group rate go to www.wyndhamevents.com/casa/nca31.htm . (Please reserve your room as soon as possible as space is limited!)

GJXDM Users' Conference Wrap-Up

There were several excellent sessions wrapping up the GJXDM Users' Conference last week in Atlanta, Georgia. The keynote for Friday was a presentation on the parallel efforts of the GJXDM and its use in the creation of the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM). The joint efforts of the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are unparalleled.

Watch the CTB for links to the conference papers and presentations when they are posted.

Tagging Legal XHTML Information White Paper

John McClure at Hypergrove Engineering informed us that a White Paper "Tagging Legal XHTML Information" has been published. (This paper is no longer available.) This paper explores the relationship between information schemas ("vocabularies") and a user process described as "information tagging." This process is often necessary in the legal and services industries where information locked in an XHTML format is to be semantically tagged. The 'semantic menus' are generated from an OWL schema of the information models that have been drafted by LegalXHTML.org for legal instruments, contacts, roles, events, properties, objects, and topics, and so for this reason, expert functional users must validate the structure and contents of the information schema. This paper is published by a new organization focused on the integration of XHTML 2.0, the Resource Description Language, and the Dublin Core technologies. Its functional scope is the set of documents that are signed (making them by definition, instruments) and which may have numbered clauses, paragraphs or tables. Supporting schemas, resources, stylesheets, and other information are being published.

Jim Keane

It is with great sadness that we pass along the announcement that Jim Keane passed away on June 10, 2005. Jim was a tireless advocate for the improvement of the legal system through technology. Most recently he was the director of the ABA lawyers section of the E-Courts 2004 conference. Jim was involved in so many activities involving the American Bar Association, Maryland Bar Association, E-Filing, and LegalXML, that it is difficult to list them all. He will be greatly missed by his friends here at the NCSC and elsewhere