As the chair of the Technology & the Courts committee for NAPPS, I recently attended the National Center for State Courts conference on "Linking the Legal System" in Las Vegas, NV. In conjunction with the NCSC conference, I also attended the ABA's committee on E-Filing, as well as, a meeting the OASIS LegalXML Technical Committee on Electronic Court Filing. The conference and meetings made for a long five days and nights in Las Vegas.
The NCSC Conference was attending several hundred court administrators, clerks of the court, judges, court technology staff, and other movers and shakers in the world of court technology and e-filing from all over the world. I also counted four NAPPS members including myself. Also part of the conference was the exhibitors all there to convince the courts and the legal community that their product or service is better than the next guys.
Many of the presentations and panel discussions were presented by actual court clerks, judges and court technologist on there specific experiences related to providing or trying to provide electronic access to the courts and other services and information such as e-filing. A common theme among many of the presenters was how they have managed to offer better public access while having little or no money in their budgets to do so.
That is where the vendors enter the picture; companies like Lexis/Nexis and Bearing Point made presentations that addressed the issue of building and funding these programs. For instance, I heard Lexis and Bearing Point both say in effect and I am paraphrasing here; let us have the exclusive rights to charge a fee to the consumers and we will build and implement the e-filing and e-access systems for you. Needless to say, the vendors "solutions" where almost entirely self serving, I suppose that is understandable they are in business to make a profit just like everyone else.
The issue of exclusivity raises a very real concern for the legal community and our industry. The courts are, for the most part funded by user/filing fees and taxpayer dollars. We as an industry need to help insure that no one company maintains an exclusive relationship with the courts. I could go on and on, about this topic but I will save my commentary on the issue of open and equal access to the courts for another article.
The NCSC conference provided an excellent opportunity to get a better sense of what some of the issues are that face the courts. The courts are very concerned about electronic access to the courts records from a privacy and security standpoint. Take what happened in the Kobe Bryant case in Colorado as an example of what can happen when the court does not adequately safeguard the information that it is responsible for maintaining. In that instance it was human error that caused the leak of otherwise confidential information. Another issue relates to public records generally. Should public records really be public or should sensitive information contained in the courts paper files be redacted for online access? These are just some of the very important issues the courts are trying to identify and address.
The NCSC conference also provided an opportunity to see what the Electronic Filing Service Providers (EFSP's) are planning. It is important to know what the EFSP's are doing not just as it relates to e-filing and e-access. We should also be concerned about the EFSP's because they will be in a unique position to offer other services to the legal community such as notice between parties and service of process. I will continue to monitor their activities.
This brings me to the next meeting topic. As mentioned earlier in this article the American Bar Association's committee on electronic court filing held a meeting immediately following the NCSC conference. John Messing, Esq., currently chairs that committee. Yes the same John Messing who participated on the panel discussion on e-filing and service of process at the last NAPPS conference. The committee consists of lawyers, representatives of CT Corp. and CSC, Fred Blum on behalf of NAPPS and other interested individuals. Robin Martinelli and I were also present. I will not go into a lot of detail because your association's efforts on this front a being led by Fred Blum. It is safe to say that NAPPS is very active on this committee and its goals to adopt and implement Best Practices for Electronic Service of Process. NAPPS has risen to occasion and is taking a leadership role on the issue. A large part of the discussion revolved around recent developments in South Carolina and its electronic service of process program. South Carolina's Rules of Civil Procedure have allowed for service on corporations and partnerships in certain situations by Registered or Certified mail. The new law expands that rule to allow in certain situations corporations and partnerships to be served electronically by sending an email to the email address on file with the Office of the Secretary of State. The ABA committee is working hard to provide South Carolina with its input as it moves forward on this project. Personally, I am hopeful that through the ABA committee, NAPPS will have made a positive impact on how South Carolinas' new rule is ultimately implemented.
The last part of my trip was to attend a meeting of the Technical Committee on Electronic Court Filing held by a group called OASIS. OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. One of the committees is the Electronic Court Filing Technical Committee. About two years ago, I learned of and joined the committee just to monitor their progress in developing a standard for electronic filing that they are trying to implement for the courts.
Mostly it is all a bunch of technologist talking about developing the requirements and standards for e-filing. Usually their discussions are very boring. Recently they have started to address the need for the courts and parties to serve each other electronically with the documents that are e-filed. They have also touched on the issue of service of original or initial process. Obviously, this is an issue near and dear to process servers. The OASIS committee to its credit realized that it did not have the expertise to address the service issues so they have sought the input of the ABA's electronic court filing committee. It is likely that the OASIS committee will ultimately incorporate the Best Practices for Electronic Service of Process as adopted by the ABA electronic court filing committee.
Rest assured that NAPPS through its involvement with all these groups and committees will make every effort to ensure that all process servers and the members of this association remain a relevant part of due process for years to come.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article I hope you found it to be informative. Please feel free to contact me I can be reached at j.karotkin@CaliforniaProcessServer.com.
