What Education Programs Would You Like to See at e-Courts 2012?

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Registration is now open and planning is underway for the e-Courts 2012 Conference. The strength and relevance of e-Courts' education program is vital to the conference's success and to your professional development. To ensure the program meets your needs, please take a few minutes to complete this brief survey at:

This and That in Court Tech - April 2012

News from California, New York, Pennsylvania, and notes on web site development with SharePoint and a new draft URN:LEX standard.

Michigan State Courts Release E-Filing RFP and RFI

The Michigan Supreme Court, State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) is seeking proposals and information for two initiatives.  The first is a Request for Proposal for a statewide Electronic Filing Manager (EFM) and Electronic Document Management System (EDMS).  The SCAO is also requesting information from potential vendors who can serve as Electronic Filing Service Providers (EFSP).

Child Welfare Data Privacy Webinar Offered

The National Resource Center for Child Welfare Data and Technology will be hosting a free, open webinar on April 12, 2012 to discuss the privacy aspects of data exchange for juvenile data.

Register Now for e-Courts 2012 — It's a Win-Win Situation

Booking e-Courts 2012 is Now Open!

December 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of e-Courts in Las Vegas. This year's e-Courts will deliver two-and-a-half days of real-world solutions to the technology challenges facing today's courts.

e-Courts education sessions feature the most in-depth and current information that address the technology needs of judges, court managers, technologists, and other court professionals. e-Courts also has earned a reputation for hosting one of the most effective exhibit shows available -- it's smaller, offering opportunity for one-on-one discussion with vendors about your court's needs.

CITOC Offers Member Webinars

The Court Information Technology Officer Consortium(CITOC) Education Sub-Committee will be offering a series of webinars for its members.  The announcement is shown below.

This and That in Court Tech, March 2012 Edition

News about state E-filing legislation, OCR in PDF readers, San Francisco Superior Court E-filing RFP, Federal Courts CM/ECF progress, Microsoft Zoom.it, the E-Courts 2012 conference website, and the Wired Magazine's future of the process server.

Pennsylvania Issues One Millionth E-Citation

A press release from the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts and the Pennsylvania State Police on March 14, 2012:

One Million State Police Traffic Citations Issued Electronically
Supreme Court, PA State Police E-filing Initiative Improves Safety, Court Efficiency

Ten Tips for Buying Technology

The following article on technology purchasing was originally published in The Court Manager, a publication of the National Association for Court Management, many years ago by Curt DeClue and James McMillan.

Best Court Websites?

How about it readers.

What are your nominations for the best court websites?

Please share in the comments section below.

Going Green with E-filing

This article was originally published in the Winter, 2008 edition of the Texas Paralegal Journal and is posted here with their permission.  It provides additional arguments for savings via E-filing as discussed in our earlier post: Calculating an E-Court Return on Investment (ROI)

Submissions for Adaptive Case Management Award Announced

A call for nominations for the Adaptive Case Management Global Excellence Awards 2012 has been released.  The deadline for submitting a 250 word abstract, which answers the following three questions, is February 28, 2012.

Calculating an E-Court Return on Investment (ROI)

By James E. McMillan, NCSC; Carole D. Pettijohn, Ph.D., Director of Technology Services for R.B. "Chips" Shore, Manatee County Clerk of Court; Jennifer K. Berg, Esq., Sustainable Practice Leader, Northgate Environmental Management.

As it is legislative budget season for the USA state courts, it is a good time to look at the excellent work that Manatee County, Florida has done in calculating the return on investment of converting from a physical paper-based to an electronic-based organization.  In addition, this article will also discuss the environmental cost savings benefits of going “E”.

Glass World

Today all of us techies here at the NCSC were marveling at this video posted by Corning Glass titled "A Day Made of Glass" that shows various scenarios how glass displays are used now (photovoltaic and handheld display glass) and will be used in the future.

Smartphone Forms

Example from doFORMS

The recent Super Bowl television commercial by Samsung for their new smartphone that showed a pen interface was derided by the Apple acolytes (probably because it made fun of them).

Attorney Technology Motivations?

I don't know if it is just me or if others have noticed this but when dealing with some attorneys, particularly on the subject of E-filing there is often very strange push-back...as in, why would I want E-filing, online access, etc.?

The "3 Geeks and a Law Blog" (thanks Rob) has posted a very interesting article titled "Staying Relevant - Part 4: Technology and the Bottom-line".

They attribute some attorney resistance to technological change as "Cost-plus thinking" explaining:

"In a cost-plus world, firms react by draining the company of capital every December 31st. This mind-set does not view technology as an investment, but instead as a necessary expense. Worse yet, technology negatively impacts the number of hours and respective revenue generated by them. So why would a firm invest in it?"

The article continues with some excellent examples and counter-arguments to this worldview.  But I would also suggest that this "argument" should both inform and temper the court's response to criticisms of their technology initiatives.

Federal Judicial Center Reports on Juror Social Media Issues

NetworkWorld Blogger/Attorney, Michael Cooney posted an article on January 25, 2012 about the release of a US Federal Judicial Center report titled "Juror's Use of Social Media During Trials and Deliberations" (PDF).

This and That in Court Tech - January, 2012

During the past month we have found quite a few interesting bits of information that we would like to share with our readers below.

Federal Bankruptcy Courts Provide Online Chat Help

I have often told acquaintances that one goal of court automation is to allow court staff to be able to have enough time to answer the telephone.  But now the courts have another option. The December, 2011 edition of the US Federal Court newsletter, The Third Branch has an article on Bankruptcy courts describing their implementation of online chat titled "Chat Live Now!"

Data Visualization

Graphic from Wikipedia.org

An area of automation that the courts have generally ignored has been data visualization.  While my colleague, Dr. Ingo Keilitz has worked for many years on digital dashboard concepts, there is a lot that can be done.

One excellent example was posted by the authors at Computational Legal Studies  that presents "The Development of Structure in the Citation Network of the United States Supreme Court".  This two minute online video of a growing "network diagram" representing the early relationship of cases is fascinating.