Tech Notes – April, 2017

CourtHack 2017 Champions

News about CourtHack 2017, a podcast on law enforcement body-worn cameras and the courts, and more from Alabama on court records policy.

Handwritten Signatures - "Now a Punchline" - Part 4

There is a new example in our continuing series on traditional handwritten signatures being used to fake court documents has surfaced.  More below.

This and That in Court Tech – April, 2017

Illinois' Abraham Lincoln
statue in London

In this round-up of news, we hear about E-filing in Illinois, Identity Theft in Alabama, the NAJIS annual conference, Foxit PDF on forms, warnings about legal chatbots, an article on court/legal algorithmic projects, and an interesting cloud adoption survey results article.

Structuring Documents – Why and How

The challenge we have as courts is to turn documents into actionable information.  We most commonly do this by re-entering data into the case management systems database.  The courts can and should do better by using the software that most everyone already owns.  We discuss below.

Sponsorship opportunities at CourtHack 2.0

NCSC will be hosting CourtHack 2.0 April 22-23, 2017 at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Participating teams will come together from a variety of sources: universities, not-for-profit development groups, industry, courts, and individuals gathering and forming teams on site. We anticipate around 150 participants, dividing into about 30 teams. Court experts from across the county, including judges, court administrators, and court CIOs, will participate as mentors, providing insight into the issues and the potential benefits to both courts and the communities they serve.

The challenge sets for CourtHack 2.0 include:

1. Fairness in Fees, Fines, and Bail Practices
2. Fairness: Leveling the Playing Field
3. Understanding Customer Experience
4. Translating Legalese to Folksonomy
5. Social Support for Families in Crisis
6. Wildcard! Closing Gaps in the Court System

More details can be found at the CourtHack website: http://courthack.org/.

There are also still a number of great sponsorship opportunities available. Go here for details.

Time is running out - register now for the 2017 Court Industry Summit

If you are a solution provider to courts, you don't want to miss this opportunity to have an open and candid dialog with thought leaders from the judicial branch and your private-sector peers.

This event will be hosted by the NCSC and facilitated by the IJIS Institute's Courts Advisory Committee. Organizations who are members of IJIS receive a registration discount.

Topics will include technology trends, disruptors, and next-generation court technology standards with perspectives from leaders in federal, state and local courts. You and your industry peers will also have the opportunity to share your perspectives on trends and technologies courts should be considering.

The summit will be held April 19-20 at the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal in Princeton, NJ. For more information and to register, go to http://www.ncsc.org/Conferences-and-Events/Industry-Summit-2017.aspx.

Today (March 29) is the last day to get the group rate at the hotel - go here to make your reservations.

Daniel Lewis on Judge Analytics

This week we are happy to share a new interview with Daniel Lewis, CEO and Co-founder of Ravel Law on their new Judge Analytics system.

Some More Thoughts on CMS Data Conversion

Recently there has been news about case management systems projects with data conversion error problems.  While we have written about this issue before, I would like to share some more thoughts on this important issue.

This and That in Court Technology – March, 2017

Time for another round-up of court technology related items.  In this edition we remind everyone of the CTC 2017 proposal deadline, the Wyoming courts need to increase their Court Automation Fee, an online paperless court savings calculator, an argument for AI technology to replace juries in the future, and a story about "Amy Ingram", a digital scheduling assistant "bot" program.

CTC 2017 Call for Proposals

Salt Lake City, Utah skyline

The Court Technology Conference (CTC) 2017 will be held September 12-14 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Salt Palace Convention Center. If you know CTC, you know our tradition of bringing new perspectives to techy tools for the court profession. This year we are reaching out to the court community for session ideas that will energize teams of administrators, technologists, and judges to attend our education program.