By: Brad Smith, Sr. Justice Consultant, ImageSoft
Ready for an electronic solution? Designing technology that is easy to use and understand begins with these steps:
- Involve stakeholders who are candidates to use the technology solution; seek their input in design and functionality
- Understand their exact requirements
- Engineer the technology with features that eliminate stress and streamline day-to-day routine tasks
The ideal paperless courtroom solution for judges should be designed by and for judges to streamline their daily tasks. It should incorporate all of the actions judges need while they are on the bench, in chambers or working outside of the office.
Judges have identified their requirements for an electronic courtroom solution. It must be:
- Just as fast (or faster) as paper and manual processes
- Configurable for each individual judge and each judge’s work style
- Easy to use, intuitive, easy to understand in under 15 minutes
Just as we all have downloaded different apps on our cell phones, judges need to be able to tailor a paperless courtroom platform to their preferred user experience. It must fit the various ways judges think and work in the court, with intuitive sections, such as your calendar, your daily docket, your daily caseload.
To fit each judge’s personal preference and work style, the solution can be as elaborate or as simple as needed. A solution that allows judges to easily configure colors, apps, screen display, and tabs, etc., gives flexibility for individual customization. A useful feature is one that gives judges the option to add color-coded tabs by all motions, orders or notices filed for a particular case. Being able to change the sequence and look of the display, for example, by individualizing it by hearing type is an important function. A manual task that is especially useful for judges is automated note taking, book marking and commenting on files, all without the expense and error-prone process of marking up manual paper files.
With such a tool, you can imagine that the administrative load to print case documents and organize them specifically for each judge can be reduced dramatically.
As many courtrooms have adopted case management systems over time, any judge-centered electronic platform must integrate seamlessly with the existing CMS, regardless of vendor and brand, and especially if it is a homegrown solution.
Above all else, the electronic solution must make the judge’s work easier, less stressful, simpler and faster with greater efficiency and reduced costs.
aiSmartBench
Designed by and for judges, aiSmartBench does all of this and more. It provides access to all docket images, court rulings and events, and key case data while allowing views into the jail system, financial case data and driver’s license databases and more.
aiSmartBench offers an efficient and easy-to-use way for judges to access their docket and streamlines the case information to only what is needed on the bench. Judges can edit and eSign orders which saves time sending them back to an assistant to change, print and re-present to the judge to sign which can slow down proceedings.
Once signed, the electronic document can be sent back to the court’s document management system. This paperless pathway from the court system to the case system reduces docketing time and eliminates the staff cost of handling, storing, and securing paper orders.
Judges can search within case files and documents and across case files. Access to Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw is an easy functionality included in the solution.
aiSmartBench is the only judicial solution that integrates with any case or document management system.
Read more about the functionality of aiSmartBench.
If you’ve used the Internet or an ATM with a touchscreen, you will be completely at home using aiSmartBench.
What are your requirements for an electronic solution for the courtroom?