We called for this development three years ago, and now at least one court is getting it done. The Ohio Supreme Court has a "Case Activity Notification Service" that allows users to set up a free account and receive e-mail or RSS updates about docket activities in selected cases. Nice work Ohio!

  3:27:49 PM      

There are now a total of five state appellate courts utilizing RSS feeds to share information about opinions and news. In April 2002, West Virginia became the first, and Oklahoma is the most recent, and most prodigious, with a total of five feeds. Here's the breakdown so far:

West Virginia Supreme Court
 Recent Opinions
 Civil Topics
 Criminal Topics
 Family Topics

Louisiana Supreme Court
 News Releases

North Dakota Supreme Court
 Recent News
 Recent Opinions

Oklahoma Courts
 Recent Decisions
 Supreme Court Opinions
 Court of Civil Appeals
 Court of Criminal Appeals
 Attorney General Opinions

Utah Appellate Courts
 Recent Opinions

  2:34:53 PM      

LegalXHTML.org is a promising new kid on the block in the world of proposed standards for structured legal documents on the web. The technical specification [pdf], relies on the W3C's XHTML 2.0, and Dublin Core elements that conform to the Resource Description Framework. From the site:

Legal XHTML weaves these three building blocks - XHTML2, RDF, and Dublin Core - into a straightforward grammar which preserves for legal instruments the same flexibility familiar to authors and technical staff who today publish non-legal HTML documents on the Web. The result is that Legal XHTML encourages the development of sophisticated business practices regarding the content, exchange, and use of legal instruments by its parties and other interested individuals.

  7:57:51 PM      

Electronic Filing & Service for Courts is a new blog that tracks development and implementation of electronic filing projects nationwide. David Darst of LexisNexis File & Serve is the blog's author, and he does a good job of collecting news items from around the country related to electronic filing projects.

  11:47:42 AM      

David Starkoff discusses medium neutral citations in Australian courts, including the recognition that wide dissemination "requires cooperation from those who see the diminution (or elimination) of revenue streams . . . ."

More information at the Australasion Legal Information Institute (AustLII), Guide to Vendor and Medium Neutral Citations. Thanks to Denise Howell for the link.

  10:51:09 AM      

Working on implementing: State Court Guide to Statistical Reporting 2003, which, once implemented nationawide, should allow better understanding of the appellate process for several defined case types and events not currently well-understood.

Thinking about attending: eCourts Conference 2004

Newly added to National Center for State Courts Web site: "Blakely v. Washington: Implications for State Courts" [pdf], Links to State Information on Mass Torts [pdf]; a resource page for helping state courts address the funding crisis.

Tracking: JXDD: Justice XML Data Dictionary [pdf]

  11:12:05 AM      

A comprehensive list of Great RSS Tools, via [RSS Resources Blog]

  2:47:06 PM      

The 16th Annual International Conference on Legal Information Systems, or JURIX 2003, will be held December 11-12 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. In conjunction, a call for participation has been issued by the Liebniz Center for Law for a one-day "International Workshop on the Development of Standards for Describing Legal Documents". The conference will profile Italian, Swiss and Dutch efforts in this area. There are several international legal standardization bodies at work on XML markup standards for legal information, including MetaLex (which has produced version 1.0 of a language independent markup standard) and LexML.

Continuing to grapple with the electronic release of confidential information in court files, courts in Florida and New Hampshire have recently taken action on the recommendation of study committees in this area. [I'm obliged to beSpacific for the link.] One of the issues faced by courts that release bulk data to the information industry is the downstream effect of erroneous information in the bulk set, as well as subsequent changes to the data. For example, how are expungements and pardons handled? What about erroneous entries? What damages flow from erroneous or private data released to an outside source? One aspect of the issue -- whether damages are available under the Privacy Act for governmental release of private information where no actual damages are proven -- will be considered at oral argument tomorrow before the US Supreme Court in the case of Doe v. Chao [Docket | Briefs]. Wired News has this report.

  4:47:14 PM      

Another long day exploring court technology at CTC8 in Kansas City. I've now spoken twice about syndication and official court weblogs as a tool for improving public access. Also timely is a front-page article in the Court Technology Bulletin (no link yet) I authored entitled "Publishing an Official Court Weblog." The concept is new, and may be slow to take hold in the courts. However, I did learn yesterday that the Supreme Court of Utah will soon join West Virginia in providing access to its opinions via RSS. Hot topics include:

• Automated performance measurement
• Public access to court records -- developing policies and rules
• Business process enhancement during technology implementations
• Finding better ways to manage the IT budget

Federal Computer Week ran a story today about Chief Justice Toal's presentation, which is entitled "Courts must invest in IT, judge says". There's more to come tonight and tomorrow, and I'll be gathering more links as the conference moves forward for posting next week when I return to Charleston.

  4:41:46 PM      

The Judiciary.org has published a visual review of all 50 state judicial homepages. The following assessment criteria were applied:

1. Is the Home Page designed to make full use of the visitor's monitor, regardless of resolution settings?
2. If the Home Page does not make full use of monitor resolution, is content centered to enhance appearance and ease of viewing?
3. Does the Home Page tarnish the high professional and ethical standards associated with the judicial function by advertising or promoting private sector products and services?
4. Is the Home Page visually appealing?
5. Does the Home Page enhance a visitor's inclination to further explore the site?
6. Is the Home Page designed to be accessible and navigable by the vast majority of those who might use it?
7. Are color combinations used that allow the site to be accessible to those who suffer from varying degrees of color blindness?

  10:27:20 AM      

The news reports over the past week show that court technology is on the move internationally. Chief Justice BN Kirpal announced recently that the Supreme Court of India will enable e-filing in the coming months. India has an interesting government portal, with a wide variety of citizen services, including Cause Lists for Indian Courts, and the ability to lodge public grievances online. In Nigeria, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, along with the Chief Judge of Lagos State, recently emphasized the importance of pursuing electronic filing and other legal technology endeavors. In Australia, court officials recently announced an attempt to implement electronic filing and other measures to clear a backlog of criminal appeals. Finally, I heard from a collegue recently who is the Clerk of the Supreme Court of Guam, which has implemented an open source electronic filing system from Counterclaim.

Meanwhile, back in the states, Associated Press recently ran a good article outlining an issue I've written about before: whether court technology projects such as electronic filing leave the poor behind.

  4:43:12 PM