From the Editor. From the Chair

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Once again, the summer seemed to arrive out of nowhere. Since our last newsletter, we have continued our efforts to increase our courthouse registrations and are currently working on a new brochure that will more accurately represent our growth in the past six years. We are excited with our continued success and thank you all for your support and participation in this project. Please keep us informed of technology highlights and other items you would like us to address via the newsletter format.

Have a great summer!

Celeste Vaughn

Assistant Director for CIP

Center for Legal and Court Technology

Issue 20 January—July, 2007

Newly Participating Courts 2

Photo Gallery 3

Technology Spotlight 4

CLCT News 5

CIP Sponsors 6

Inside this issue:

Courtroom Information Project Participating Courts Newsletter

From the Editor

From the Chair

It has been some time since I have waived the “training” flag and reminded the Court of the importance of training in the advancement of technology for the administration of justice. A great deal of money is being dedicated to technology and some wonderful advancements are being made. However, we cannot truly say we have succeeded unless the majority of the bench and bar appreciate and understand how to take advantage of these tools. A com-mitment to training is a must and the training needs to be continual and reoc-curring. To the extent any of the participating courts have training programs to share we would be pleased to receive them.

Richard K. Herrmann, Esq.

Morris, James LLP

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STATE COURTS

Courts: Newly Participating

and Recently Updated

PAGE 2 COURTROOM INFORMATION PROJECT PARTICIPATING COURTS NEWSLETTER

ISSUE 20

California

Superior Court of California, County of Santa Cruz Superior Court of California, County of Mendocino

Florida

14th Judicial Circuit Court, Panama City

Indiana

Indiana Supreme Court

Michigan

23rd Circuit Court, Arenac County 42nd Circuit Court, Midland County

Missouri

16th Judicial Circuit Court, Jackson County

New York

Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department

North Dakota

North Dakota Supreme Court, Bismark

Oregon

25th Judicial District Court, Yamhill County

Virginia

Virginia Beach Circuit Court, Virginia Beach

FEDERAL COURTS

California

U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California

Florida

U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida

Georgia

U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta

Idaho

U.S. District & Bankruptcy Court, District of Idaho, Boise

Oklahoma

U.S. District Court, Western District of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City

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U.S. District Court, Western District of Oklahoma Oklahoma City, OK

ISSUE 20 COURTROOM INFORMATION PROJECT PARTICIPATING COURTS NEWSLETTER PAGE 3

A sampling of photos from the CIP website

Photo Gallery –

U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia Atlanta, GA

Virginia Beach Circuit Court Virginia Beach, VA

14th Judicial Court, Bay County Juvenile Courthouse Panama City, FL

Superior Court of CA, County of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

ISSUE 20

Indiana Supreme Court, Indianapolis, IN

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ISSUE 20 COURTROOM INFORMATION PROJECT PARTICIPATING COURTS NEWSLETTER PAGE 4

ISSUE 20

...

JACS

can save up

to 50% of the judicial

assistant’s time…

Technology Spotlight

CLCT Training &Conference Schedule

The Center for Legal and Court Technology has set its conference and training schedule for next year:

October 15-16, 2007—Technology Augmented Trial Advocacy Course March 3-5, 2008—Basic Court Technologist A/V Certification Course March 6-7, 2008—Courthouse Construction & Renovation Conference May 12-14, 2008—Advanced Court Technologist A/V Course

July 14-15, 2008—Technology Augmented Trial Advocacy Course

To learn more about these courses, and to register, go to www.legaltechcenter.com BIAMP Systems has developed a new method for

remote language interpretation in the courtroom over a standard telephone line. Using audio processors installed in many courtrooms around the world, this system allows simultaneous language interpretation over a single telephone line with the remote inter-preter working from a home phone.

The primary issues faced by courts and their need for language interpreting are cost, scheduling, and a lim-ited qualified talent pool. Certified interpreters can connect to courtrooms by telephone, avoiding costly travel and providing better access. However, tele-phonic interpreting has been less than perfect since most is done via speakerphone technology, forcing interpretation to be consecutive. Consecutive inter-preting slows court proceedings because both lan-guages must be spoken in a sequential manner which breaks the natural cadence of speech and thought dur-ing proceeddur-ings.

An interpreting system offered by Rauch does offer simultaneous interpreting by telephone. It overcomes the problem of consecutive interpreting, but requires a special interpreter’s console at the remote site and two phones lines at both ends of the connection.

BIAMP’s system overcomes the issue of consecutive interpreting, special remote equipment, and two phone lines. A standard BIAMP audio processor, equipped with their telephone interface, is programmed to mix audio from the courtroom over a phone line to the re-mote interpreter. It also receives audio from the mi-crophone of the interpreter and directs it to a device connected to the ear of the non-English speaker in the courtroom. All of this is accomplished over a single telephone line. Rather than requiring the use of a spe-cial console by the remote interpreter to control the destination of their voice, they simply use the tele-phone keypad. It also allows for private conversation between defendant, attorney and interpreter. There is no need for special equipment, and only one telephone line is necessary when the BIAMP processor is used in the courtroom.

The system provides a new level of performance in remote interpreting systems, lowers interpreting costs and alleviates scheduling conflicts for courts. To learn more about the BIAMP Distance Courtroom Interpre-tation system, call 1-800-826-1457 or email

[email protected].

BIAMP: Telephonic Courtroom Interpreting

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ISSUE 20

The College of William & Mary School of Law has many unique aspects, ranging from the McGlothlin Courtroom, the most technologically advanced courtroom in the world, application-oriented legal technology courses, to actual e-filing of cases. The e-filing of student Legal Skills cases is done in conjunction with the extremely supportive staff at the U.S. District Court

Center for Legal and Court Technology

The College of William & Mary School of Law has many unique aspects, ranging from the McGlothlin Courtroom, the most technologically advanced courtroom in the world, application-oriented legal technology courses, to actual filing of cases. The e-filing of student Legal Skills cases is done in

conjunction with the extremely supportive staff at the U.S. District Court District of Maryland and the Center for Legal and Court Technology. This e-filing has given the law students at William & Mary experience and exposure to the system that our federal courts are moving toward.

Legal Skills is a mandatory two year course in which law students are members of simulated law firms. Legal Skills teaches professional ethics, legal research and writing, interviewing, negotiation, alternative dispute resolution (ADR), and trial and appellate practice. Over the course of two years, students work on four major simulated role-played cases and a number of minor ones. The second case, “Client B,” begins with an interview of the client and goes through the entire process ending in appeal, roughly one and a half academic years later.

Working through the Center for Legal and Court Technology, Legal Skills students had electronically filed their Client B case pleadings for some years. However, LexisNexis, the last company to assist with e-filing, was unable to continue its support, leaving student lawyers without e-filing. Help came from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.

The idea for working with a U.S. District Court in creating a system for students came about in 2004 when Felicia Cannon, Clerk of Court, and Lisa Rosenthal, Chief Deputy Clerk for U.S. District Court of Maryland were visiting the McGlothlin Courtroom. Hearing that e-filing had been suspended, the astute visitors volunteered to assist. Fred Lederer, Director of the Center for Legal and Court Technology and Chancellor Professor of Law, was delighted with the idea and started the wheels in motion to make it happen.

First, both the law school and the U.S. District Court of Maryland came up with a “punch list” of initial

information required and issues to investigate. The court needed to understand how the student class assignments worked to determine if the Case

Management/Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system would be of value. Once this was understood, the logistics of accessing the e-filing system had to be worked out. Details involved included:

• Determining where cases should reside in the U.S. District Court of Maryland system so they were “out of the way” of court personnel

• Creating and assigning logins and passwords • Designing a method for students to register in the

CM/ECF system as attorney-users to receive notices of electronic filings

• Training students to use the system

• Providing enough guidance to make it work in the MD federal CM/ECF “world” when the student assignment is based on rules of various state courts

Although the list looked prohibitive, Lisa Rosenthal, Ginny Zahner with the U.S.D.C. of Maryland’s IT department, and LuAnn Davis, the Operations Supervisor at the time, commented that none of these were major obstacles, particularly when receiving the full support of Felicia Cannon. Once completed, the “crew” from Maryland came back to Williamsburg to train the teaching assistants, who were tasked with educating the students. As with most new ventures, adjustments needed to be made in the initial stages in order for the simulated information and academic exercise to fit into the “real-world” scenario.

Each year improvements have been made as the kinks have worked out. In the second year, Maryland provided training via video, and in year three, support was provided by phone and e-mail. In the same vein, program filings were limited to initial case opening documents that were entered into the system by the court itself. In the second year, students were filing their answers on-line and this year students have done further filing. Next year’s planning is already in the works and the goal is to have the students file the complaints on-line.

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ISSUE 20 _z

Many thanks to our sponsors without whose support the

Courtroom Information Project would not be possible.

Corporate Sponsors

Supporting Architect Firms

Supporting Law Firms

Featured Sponsor:

Founded in 1901, Hunton & Williams prides itself on excellence and hard work. We organize teams to provide our clients with experience and advise in vir-tually every discipline of the law.

Our lawyers come from every state and represent more than 65 law schools. Many speak multiple languages and are located in the U.S., Europe and Asia and extensive practices exist in Africa and South America. This enables us to re-spond knowledgeably, effectively and quickly, whether the issue is local, re-gional, national or international.

Our clients expect our lawyers to be re-sponsive, attentive and flexible, and to communicate on a regular basis and in understandable terms. Our diverse back-grounds are combined with our commit-ment to provide clients with quality legal services.

To learn more, go to www.hunton.com or contact one of their many local offices.

CIP Newsletter

A bimonthly publication of the Courtroom Information Project

Chair: Richard Herrmann, Esquire,

Senior Advisor, Legal Technology

Editor: Celeste Vaughn, Assistant

Director for Affiliates and CIP Please feel free to contact Celeste Vaughn

at [email protected] if you have any comments, questions, or concerns.