Three Interesting Things

This week we share some interesting ideas that have come to our attention on Pennsylvania’s new online Dependency Benchbook, an online support calculator, and how to publish Internet Calendars with Microsoft Office Outlook.

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Reminder Systems for Courts

Reminding people to appear at court or to make payments has achieved solid results.  We will discuss the studies, some courts with systems, and a USA commercial service provider in this article.

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Georgia Receives Springboard Certification from the IJIS Institute

The IJIS Institute announced the accomplishment of the Georgia Administrative Office of the
Courts in obtaining Springboard certification on an information sharing initiative aimed at the transmission of legal documents among court system participants.

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A Brief Note about Case Numbers

The format and requirements for court case numbers is different in automated systems.  I will explain.

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CITOC Innovation Award Seminar

The Court Information Technology Officer Consortium (CITOC) Education Sub-Committee is pleased to host its first webinar for CITOC members in 2014.

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Court Decisions, “Link Rot”, and Perma.cc

As defined in Wikipedia, “Link rot” is an informal term for the process by which hyperlinks (either on individual websites or the Internet in general) point to web pages, servers or other resources that have become permanently unavailable.  This has become a serious problem in legal opinions and decisions.  A consortium of law libraries is taking action by creating Perma.cc.

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Making the Record: Utilizing Digital Electronic Recording Paper Released

My good friend, former Vermont State Court Administrator, Lee Suskin and I have been busy this year working with the digital electronic recording industry to write the above titled report that is now available.  Click here to download a PDF copy of the paper.

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QR Codes for Easy Access to Calendars

The US Federal Bankruptcy Court in the Central District of California innovates with QR Codes.

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CTC-2013 Highlights

We share our highlights from CTC-2013 held last week in Baltimore, Maryland in this week’s post.

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Arizona Traffic Ticket and Complaint e-Citation Program

The Arizona Courts have developed a program to support the use of e-Citation systems in the state. The program manager explains their system, approach, and benefits.

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Why E-filing Fees are Not a Tax

Recent news prompts a response on the need for court E-filing Fees.

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Judge Herbert Dixon Shares His Juror "Internet Charge"

The "Googling Juror" is a continual challenge to trial judges.  Here is how one addresses the issue in plain language.

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CITOC Innovation Award Winner – Barbara Holmes

At the Court Information Technology Officers Consortium (CITOC) Annual Meeting held in December 2012 in Las Vegas, the first Innovation Award winner was announced.

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Indiana Courts E-Filing Project Primer

The Indiana Division of State Court Administration has posted a very useful web page on creating and implementing an E-filing system.

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This and That in Court Tech – January 2013

Here are some things that recently happened in court technology and related areas.

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Singapore E-Courts Presentation

The Singapore Supreme Court presentation on their new Integrated Electronic Litigation System (iLES) at the E-Courts 2012 conference is available for viewing/download by clicking here.

This and That in Court Tech - June, 2012

News about Oregon's eCourts project, a new blog by ProBono.net, LawTech Camp 2012, New Mexico's website attack, Password security, and an excellent change management article.

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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.

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Iterative Implementation

In recent years I have become less and less convinced that courts have the ability to foresee all of the process/workflow, document, and data sharing BEFORE they install a new case or document management system.  These new systems have substantially more capabilities and flexibility that is not available in first or second generation case management systems.  The new system brings many more new capabilities and possibilities.  The old thinking about how things should be done in general does not apply and the design/specification efforts are wasted.

Therefore in recent years I have often advocated an “iterative approach” that has a new system first installed in the court with base/default capabilities.   THEN, after experiencing the new system environment, the court adjusts both the system workflows/presentation and their business processes (and ideally organizational structure) to take advantage of the new technical capabilities.  Visually presented, these are the two outside arrows of the Court Technology Framework diagram in action.

The system is therefore chosen based on the tools and potential, and not on how closely it fits the existing or imagined situation.  This in turn means that new court automation system installations are not a 6 month but rather a 12-24 effort.  And budgets and staff resources must be provided to support the effort over that time.

Many of you know and have viewed the wonderful TED Conference presentations that are available online.  One presentation on point is called “Build a tower, build a team” by Tom Wujec. I hope you enjoy it.