|
VirtualCourthouse March 2001; Issue
6.3
A VISION SUPPORTING
MULTIPLE PROVIDERS
OF ELECTRONIC FILING TO MULTIPLE COURTS
By Judge (Retired) Arthur M. Monty
Ahalt
As electronic filing of court documents moves from the pioneers to
large-scale adoption, it has become clear the task is much larger than first
imagined. The pioneers have experimented with the technology and the market over
the last 8 years, and to date less than 1% of court documents are electronically
filed. As the pioneers have experimented, several models have evolved:
· Closed systems - the individual
filing must comply with the requirements of one provider, regardless if the
provider is public or private. Such systems typically require specialized
software.
· Internet systems - the individual
filing does not require specialized software rather an Internet connected
computer equipped with a Web browser.
Further delineation may also be made with respect to who is managing and
supporting the process:
· Public systems - those designed,
managed, supported and maintained by a governmental agency.
· Private systems - those designed,
managed, supported and maintained by a private non-governmental agency. Such
systems must ultimately interface with the public systems of the courts
While each approach has its advantages none of these models have proven
effective in creating the volume of electronic filing necessary to create the
productivity savings, which dramatically improve the administration of justice.
Underlying the debate of the most appropriate method to create a significant
critical mass is the issue of how a court will be best able to manage and
control the workflow of electronically filed documents. Those on the private
side argue the Court controls the electronic documents by contract, not
possession. Those on the public side argue the Court cannot adequately discharge
its governmental function unless the Court has physical control of the
electronic documents.
MULTIPLE PROVIDERS-MULTIPLE COURTS
What is needed is an approach, which encourages a variety of models - both
public and private - for the electronic filing of court documents. This in part
has been the motivation behind Legal XML discussions and projects. To proponents
of XML, the use of this technology will deliver open systems to the Justice
Community. This notion however ignores three real compelling factors. First; XML
is an approach using the Internet for easier data integration between
applications and organizations - a common language that helps to define and
resolve differences among dissimilar data structures. That said, XML is not an
application that can help courts receive, process, interact with, manage and
ultimately transfer and integrate the incoming data to its backend systems.
Rather XML is simply a methodology to describe data in a standard,
non-application specific manner. Second; XML does not deal with the issues of
marketing, education and support in order to drive adoption and motivate the
legal community to integrate electronic filing into their existing work and
business processes. Third; XML does not answer the question of who pays for and
supports the administration of systems that will monitor the electronic
transactions from multiple and diverse public and private providers.
Defining a standard for the data contained in a document is an essential
first step in formulating an open electronic filing process. However, since
there are hundreds (if not thousands) of specialized court systems that house
this data, there is a real requirement that each of these systems be modified
(or new systems created) to receive the data. The process will only move as
quickly as money and programming resources allow for each court system to make
the necessary changes. If an entity were to take on the daunting task of
creating the necessary specialized software interface required by each court
system, then any individual filer, e-filing software vendor or public agency
could simply submit the filing in a clearly defined format. Software of this
type is known as "middleware". E-filing middleware presents a standardized input
methodology and contains the necessary specialized code to prepare and submit
incoming data in a form required by each specialized court case management
system.
THE VISION
It is this expertise, which CourtLink Corp.
(1) has introduced into the market via its JusticeLink middleware
product named eFM. eFM offers the following functionality:
§ Front-end XML transaction
connectivity.
The software(Application Interface-API) is written to
read and write XML transactions to generic front-end systems. The format is
open, (XML Filing Protocol, a.k.a. "XFP"), and is very
similar to the LegalXML Court Filing Standard 1.0 (CFS 1.0) (2).
CourtLink is committed to adding
support for the CFS 1.0 as soon as practical after its formal approval as a
recommended standard. CourtLink's middleware approach anticipates the need to
support multiple versions of multiple standards simultaneously in the future.
§ CMS Back-end XML transaction
connectivity.
The transactions required for use in the CMS are
supported by XML transactions between eFM and the CMS. CourtLink refers to this
as a "CMS Adapter". The only released adapter as of 10/31/2000 is for SCT Courts
version 3.1.
(3)
§ DMS/IMS Back-end XML
transaction connectivity.
eFM supports an integrated DMS interface
to FileNET and OTG image management systems, allowing for the documents
transmitted to eFM to be written to the DMS.
§ Court Clerk
functionality.
In order to file at any specific eFM-enabled court, a
user must be 'registered' with the court. This is accomplished via a
'registration' XML transaction that can be generated by the eFILE provider. EFM
supports multiple eFILE providers simultaneously, and a filer (attorney) may use
more than one eFILE provider with the same court, if desired. Additionally all
'submissions' are available to the clerks for review, (and appropriate changes),
before docketing and commitment to the DMS. eFM provides a robust set of
capabilities to assist the clerk with processing filings in a fast, accurate
fashion.
§ Automated Electronic
Receipt/Face sheet
An electronic face sheet is automatically
prepared by eFM and pre-pended to the filing. A copy is also returned as part of
the XML receipt to the electronic filing system. All filings (original and
subsequent) are manipulated by the clerk in eFM. All acceptance, rejection,
changing of data, adding parties, fee control, document hierarchy manipulation,
etc., is accomplished through the eFM provided web interface.
CourtLink's eFM solution accepts filings from multiple e-filing providers and
contains the necessary procedures to integrate with any court case management
system, once the appropriate adapter has been created (4)
. A court using this approach will be
able to accept e-filings in accordance with it's own local protocol, from
multiple private providers, such as CourtLink, Westfile, and any other provider.
This approach allows the Court to attract the greatest number of electronic
documents. The court is free to elect to physically control and manage its
electronic documents or to contract with a service provider to perform this
function for the court. Thus providing for the greatest possible number of users
- allows for the application of the highest common denominator rather than the
lowest common denominator.
THE WISDOM OF OPEN SYSTEMS
Instruction for the wisdom of a policy such as this can be
drawn for the experience of opening up the Internet and the consequential
explosion in its use. The Internet began as a private government-only network,
which served the scientific and educational community under the auspices of the
National Science Foundation. At the urging of the business community the
National Science Foundation began to open up its network to commercial users and
then in 1992 Rep. Rick Boucher (D- VA) introduced legislation declaring the
Internet open to public competition. The NSF backbone was retired as a
not-for-profit entity and was replaced by system of commercial network access
points connected to one another. As the government no longer needed to spend
scarce resources supporting the Internet, use of the Internet and subsequently
the World Wide Web, has grown exponentially. This should be a valuable and
instructive lesson for courts desiring to dramatically increase public access
and create vast productivity and efficiency gains in the administration of
justice.
1.
1 See http://www.courtlink.com
2.
2 LegalXML donated
significant parts of the XFP protocol to the public domain for use. These
pre-date the LegalXML v1.0 proposed standard.
3.
3 EFM Adapter for SCT
Courts 4.0 is scheduled to be released in mid-2001. Other adapters are in
development, and the adapter "API" will also be published in approximately the
same timeframe.
4.
4 CourtLink can also implement eFile with
courts that are not ready for integration, and/or where an adapter is not
available. The company has a multi-tier service offering that the court can use
to "phase in" deep integration.
Access to previous articles: see
http://www.montyahalt.com
Contact: Arthur M. Monty Ahalt
amahalt@virtualcourthouse.com
301-218-2030 |
