Friday, June 25, 2021

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.



Tuesday, June 22, 2021

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.  

Friday, June 18, 2021

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...

 


Tuesday, June 15, 2021

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.


Friday, June 11, 2021

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.


 

Friday, June 4, 2021

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.








Friday, May 28, 2021

This and That in Court Tech – May 2021

 

We have been saving a lot (and I mean “a lot) of interesting items to share in recent weeks.  We have news about court data analytics in California, an academic paper questioning the use of arrest data in policy development, a new justice index ranking report for USA courts, a report on Fines and Fees policies, the application of microeconomics for policy development, the NIEM JSON Specification, Version 5.0 release candidate 2, Ohio Court News on sealed records, England and Wales reports on the results of their divorce online system, applying the PDF A-4 standard for permanent digital records, and an excellent Tiny Chat.



Thursday, May 13, 2021

“Fixing” Criminal Justice Data and My Alternative Approach

 

Last month, the Arnold Ventures group released a report titled “We Need Criminal Justice Data That Doesn’t Exist.  Here’s How the Biden Administration Can FixIt.”

This is a subject near and dear to me as I have been working on much of this for a long time.  I agree with many parts of the report.  However, I was disappointed to see that the full report missed many standards and frameworks that have been previously built?  More below...