Ohio Supreme Court Announces Imaging and RSS technology

The Supreme Court of Ohio announced on November 30, 2006 that as of December 1st, all case documents filed on and after that date will be available online soon after filing. In addition, the Court also announced a new Case Activity Notification Service using RSS technology. The service will make it easier for interested parties to track developments in cases pending before the Supreme Court.

US Federal Court E-Filing Rules

Attorney Howard J. Bashman, in his regular column for Law.com, discusses new rules for unpublished citations and appellate court E-filing in his article "What Do the Federal Appellate Procedure Rule Changes Mean for You?" (12/2010 update: please note that access to this article requires a subscription to Law.com)

Ohio Courts Technology Survey Released

The Supreme Court of Ohio has recently released a summary of their latest technology survey. Highlights include finding that nearly all courts have Internet access and approximately half have some kind of document imaging technology installed.

Drug Court Online Training Event

"Drug Courts Reexamined," is a free online event November 13, 2006 2:00–4:00 pm (eastern time)

Featuring:

• Michael Rempel, Research Director at the Center for Court Innovation.
• Peter F. Luongo, Ph.D., Director of the Maryland Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration.
• Judge Terry D. Terrell, First Judicial Circuit Court of Florida.
• Moderated by Thomas J. Charron, Executive Director of the National District Attorneys Association.

The event is hosted by: Harvard University's Government Innovators Network, the National Institute of Justice of the U.S. Department of Justice, and the online housing resource KnowledgePlex.

US Sentencing Comission Electronic Reporting

In its Fall 2006 Guidelines Newsletter the US Federal Sentencing Commission notes that 70 Federal District Courts are "submitting their case files electronically." The case files include "the five required documents (i.e., judgment and commitment order, statement of reasons form, any plea agreement, the charging document, and the presentence report)" using PDF format.

(Author's note: Now if we can just get them to use the GJXDM. For more information about XML-based charge and sentencing reporting see our National Standards web page )

A Great Domestic Court Judge's Website in Ohio

We have recently become aware of Judge Mike Voris' web site for the Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Division, in Clermont County, Batavia, Ohio: http://www.domesticcourt.org/
He features a lot of court forms, a streaming video interview as well as other information to help litigants navigate their way through the judicial system. Well done!

Ohio Supreme Court Announces Effort to Build Statewide Network Connecting Courts

State of Ohio Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer recently announced in his State of the Judiciary Address that a plan to build a statewide network connecting courts throughout the state to share information with each other and law enforcement partners is moving forward.

Links to Supreme Courts Around the World

Our good friend Judge Stein Schjolberg from Norway has build a very handy new website, Global Courts, that provides links to national Supreme Court decisions from around the world.

Saving a Troubled Project

Computerworld magazine posted an excellent article regarding techniques that can be applied to salvage a troubled information technology project

Saving a Troubled Project

Computerworld magazine posted an excellent article regarding techniques that can be applied to salvage a troubled information technology project

XML Documents - Why Should I Care?

I can summarize the answer to the above titled question in one word - control. For as long as court case management systems have existed, there has been a continual struggle between the need for more data to be added and the time it takes for a programmer and database administrator to add it to the system. XML documents can give court staff an additional tool to add and control their own data collection instruments, just like they could in the "paper world." Now there are currently significant issues as to whether the court case management system being used in a particular court can store or link to documents. But once that is in place, and there is an upgrade to new XML-enabled databases, court staff will be able to use documents as an integral part of their system. Mr. Ronald Bourret has written a general tutorial about XML and Databases that may be of help in explaining this concept further. In addition, there are a few InfoWorld articles on Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2 databases that, while rather technical, can provide addition illumination of the new database capabilities and hence, new thinking that needs to be applied to our situation in the courts.

Next time - Using Search to Count

Self-Docketing Smart Documents

I've been spending time in Orlando, Florida recently and I had the privilege of meeting with Ms. Carolyn Weber who is their E-filing (ECF) project manager. Carolyn has a great example of smart documents on the Orange County Clerk of Court ECF project website. Their system currently supports three documents, the Certificate of Service, Summons, and most important the Case Initiation Worksheet, that can be downloaded, completed and when submitted to the E-filing system, saves a considerable amount of time in completing the filing. If you have a chance, I recommend downloading the Case Initiation Worksheet and then right-click on the "gray boxes" to see how they have coded the field names for later "parsing" into their case management system. I think that this is a good example of progressive thinking because it advances toward the goal of single source data capture which also makes it more accurate.

Next week - XML in word processing and why should you care?

Clark County Regional Justice Center Adds WiFi Access

A press release from Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) shares information regarding their new wireless network system.

Agile Software Development

I just finished reading the September 2006 digital edition of "Dr. Dobb's Journal". I was intrigued by Scott Ambler's article "Survey Says: Agile Works in Practice". We haven't seen many court IT organizations adopting agile development methodologies, but such methods and techniques are certainly making headway in other industries. Of particular interest are the survey results presented in Scott's article showing increased productivity, system quality and stakeholder satisfaction in projects using agile approaches

How Smart Can We Make the Documents?

I have written about this before, but lately, after working with several case management systems I have become more and more convinced that court technologists are still missing the point that the data is in the document. Almost everything that a court does either involves receiving a document or producing a document. The smarter that we make documents, by "tagging" the information via templates and forms, the less data entry is needed because either the document becomes the database or the data is automatically parsed and entered into the court's database.

On the input side, courts have done an excellent job of posting their forms in editable formats and PDF. But very few have "connected the dots" by using these forms as data sources in their E-filing projects. I find that it is particularly interesting that progress in this area is being made in the integrated justice projects with GJXDM technology rather than in civil case E-filing. For example, at CTC8, Orange County, Florida Integrated Justice System project showed their automated criminal complaint systems and at the upcoming E-Courts Conference this December, the Maricopa County, Arizona Integrated Justice System will be showing their electronic warrant system.

Further, most court automation seem to still treat court generated documents as reports or as separate standalone systems. When a court creates a document using word processing software, it should not simply be printed on paper. It should also be stored electronically and linked to the case management system. There are many ways that this can be done and I'll write about a few of them next week.

Philadelphia Courtroom Website

For those of you looking for ideas about how to present the capabilities of your own "Hi-Tech" Courtroom, you might want to check out the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania First Judicial District website on Courtroom 625.

Orange County, California Allows Jurors to Request Delay Online

In the NCSC's Jur-E Bulletin, July Edition the editors note that the Orange County, California Superior Court has an excellent Jury Services website. They also had a link to an article in the Orange County (CA) Register newspaper about the site.

A Lawyer's View of Appellate Technology

Mr. Howard Bashman of Law.com shares his experiences on video and teleconferencing in his article, Commentary: Predicting Technology's Impact on Appellate Oral Argument. He also muses about the use of collaboration software in Appellate Court proceedings.

PC Posture

eWeek Magazine has posted an interesting article about computer user ergonomics titled "The Perils of PC Posture"

Federal Courts E-Government Act Compliance

In an article in the US Federal Court's newsletter, "The Third Branch", they reported that the judiciaries compliance with the "E-Government Act of 2002" was nearly total. The article explains that the US Congress passed the E-Government Act in order to improve customer service to citizens via the Internet. The article further notes that nearly 200 Federal Courts have their own websites, and that many are not only in compliance but exceed the type and amount of information required.