Post-pandemic lessons for court administrators

The word “solution” is overused in technology, but it accurately conveys the story behind Thomson Reuters® Case Center. Case Center is a single solution to the court’s unique host of problems experienced when handling evidence in a digital era.

1. A single source of evidence for all. Parties submit evidence into one court-managed  repository to which courts can grant access to relevant parties as required. This eliminates discrepancies and ensures equitable access to a consistent evidence base.

2. Better evidence management. Rather than email evidence between parties or share large files on cloud services, good evidence management tools streamline, secure, and simplify how parties manage evidence.

3. Everyone on the same page. During a trial or hearing, presenters can refer to evidence and instantly maneuver to exhibits or cue points in multimedia. Other parties’ systems will automatically follow, meaning everyone in the courtroom is looking at the same material. This is especially useful for inexperienced or nervous court users.

On the following pages, we examine some specific challenges for court administrators and see how digital evidence management can help.

Confidence in an efficient court system

Conversations about the public perception of courts are negative. After all, we would not be talking about the issue if litigants were universally positive about the justice system.

People who work for — and in — courts acknowledge some truth behind this perception. In a 2021 members’ survey by the National Association of Court Management (NACM), public confidence in the courts was the number-one cause that members wanted NACM to advocate for on their behalf — a spot it has occupied for the past several years.

But where does this distrust come from? Many, if not most, court users must be there. Even for those who are there of their own volition seeking justice, several factors combine to erode confidence in the system. Backlogs in many jurisdictions that stretch back years mean that people wait in limbo for legal issues to be resolved. We know from working with our clients that this can go on for months  — even years in many cases.

Fixing backlogs requires a substantial amount of hands-on work. The more efficiently courts can resolve backlogs, the quicker they can process cases and the more people can pass through the system.

Implementation of Case Center has consistently proven reductions in the numbers of hearings required for cases and in the amount of time it takes to prepare for cases. For example, a scheme in the Crown Courts in England and Wales saw a decrease of close to 50% in the number of hearings required to resolve a guilty plea.

Prosecutors in England that use Case Center report that they spend 80% less time preparing cases, meaning they can get through more of them, further reducing backlogs and ensuring that justice is no longer delayed — or denied.

Lawyers are less able to waste court time by requesting continuations or extensions, too. Case Center has an audit trail showing who has had access to a particular piece of evidence. It can even show when parties accessed each document. Excuses that parties have not received all evidence no longer work.

Confidence in courts rests on the assumption that the courts are doing the bare minimum that citizens expect, such as delivering timely justice. Good evidence management makes this more achievable.

Ready for any and all data

With so much of our lives spent online, especially over the past two years, many of our relationships — personal, professional, and legal — can be summarized as a series of data exchanges.

While that may be a stretch, it is fair to say the ability to handle current and new types of data is necessary for any organization that deals with people. In a courtroom context, this means electronic documentation, for example. E-filing and electronic caseflow management are already commonplace. These systems exist to make it easy to submit and share documentation smoothly through the legal process.

But when it comes to more complex files, courts often struggle. Video evidence, for example, is growing massively in volume as body-worn cameras become the norm among law enforcement. Add to this the growing prevalence of CCTV (the U.S. and China are estimated to have one camera for every four people) and the ability of any passer-by to film an incident on their mobile phone, it is clear that courts are facing a barrage of digital evidence.

Submitting multimedia evidence in court can be a clunky process. It usually means burning the video or audio onto a CD or USB thumb drive, then hoping the courtroom has the necessary technology to allow that file to be played back during a trial.

Thomson Reuters Case Center allows for almost any multimedia type, including files that previously required a proprietary player for playback. Since Case Center provides a single secure repository, courts do not need to use less secure cloud-based file sharing services that are not specifically designed for court use. Parties can present video evidence just as they can with text documents or images. They can skip to points in a video so that everyone in the courtroom can follow along and annotate video evidence before, during, and after a trial. The solution works just as well in virtual scenarios as it does in a courtroom.

With all this happening in browser, it obviates the need for courts to find dedicated technology to handle, store, and display multimedia evidence.

Accessible court services

Linked to the area of public confidence in courts — and just as pressing for court administrators — is the problem of equitable access to services. This is a broad topic and not one that can be solved with one solution.

However, modern digital evidence management techniques can make it easier for juries, witnesses, and parties to both attend hearings and participate in cases on a level playing field.

Surveys suggest that virtual trials are popular with professional and occasional court users. The benefits in terms of accessibility are clear: people who do not have to travel are more likely to appear. One county in Arizona recorded a drop in “failure to appear” rates from 40% down to 14%. 

People who could otherwise not afford to travel to court can now access justice remotely. The contentious nature of some cases (for example, domestic violence cases) may mean that people would not want to be in the same room as the opposing parties; virtual hearings give them the privacy and peace of mind that they do not have to be. And people who only need to appear briefly in a trial can do so without having to take a day off work.

Enabling digital evidence management across hearings brings the digital and physical worlds closer, meaning courts can assure accessibility for all.

Self-represented litigants, for example, can use Case Center to upload evidence from a phone or computer. From here, evidence can be shared with other attorneys or parties and annotated just like evidence used by professional attorneys. Courts can allow self-represented litigants full access to the system or restrict their use depending on their security policies.

Jury trials continued to proceed virtually in some jurisdictions during the pandemic. But many counties were not able to do so due to the difficulty of sharing and presenting evidence while physically distanced. Case Center digitizes the entire evidence lifecycle — from submission through to post-hearing reconciliation — meaning that it becomes an integral part of virtual hearings. Witnesses can take part virtually too, as they are also able to access evidence through Case Center.

The court as a technology leader?

Courts are not typically known for being forward thinking in their use of technology. Administrators will be familiar with some of the cumbersome and paper-heavy processes that remain in place to this day, leaving court users wondering why they cannot just do it all online.

The opportunity now is for courts to solidify the gains they have made over the past two years. This is another key goal for NACM members, 89% of whom agree or strongly agree that the body should be advocating for this on their behalf.

But anyone who has implemented a new IT system in a court — such as e-filing, document sharing, or case management systems — knows that smooth rollouts are not guaranteed and driving adoption among the court’s diverse user groups can be a challenge.

In this context, Case Center can be seen as an enhancement to, rather than a replacement for, existing IT systems. It is quick to implement, runs on web browsers, and stores all evidence securely in the cloud. There is no customization necessary and no expensive, lengthy rollout. Thomson Reuters will work with the court to review and advise on adapting processes and court directives. We have developed change management practices based on many deployments for courts across the globe. Our systems now hold more than 500,000 cases with over 250 million pages of evidence.

The thought of storing legally sensitive evidence in the cloud may raise the suspicions of IT leaders in some courts — but it shouldn’t.

Case Center is hosted on the mission- critical Microsoft® Azure cloud platform, with each jurisdiction maintaining data sovereignty through local data centers. For example, in the U.S. its hosted on the Microsoft Azure Government cloud platform — the trusted cloud for United States government agencies and their partners. Not only does this provide a world-class security foundation thanks to the expertise and resources a global cloud provider can dedicate to security, but it is also more cost effective for courts, thanks to the scale at which Microsoft can implement these measures. Case Center itself is also highly secure, with regular external penetration tests, ISO 27001 certification, and independently assessed CJIS compliance.

Taken together, Case Center is trusted by state and national governments across the United States and worldwide. Courts will find their cloud-based digital evidence system is one of the most secure and cost- effective systems in their technology stack.

What’s next?

Our experience tells us that court administrators are not IT experts, but they are under pressure to find cost-effective solutions to the many problems they face every day.

We can demonstrate the real-world value of Case Center in:

• Making trials run more smoothly, improving case flow through courts.
• Helping increase public confidence in courts.
• Improving virtual hearing capabilities, rendering court services more accessible to a wide range of users.
• Allowing courts to seamlessly integrate multimedia evidence into virtual and physical hearings.
• Offering unparalleled ease of implementation and security at a cost that courts struggle to match on-premises.

The software has been refined over a decade to meet the precise needs of courts. It was founded and developed by a team of experts in legal IT systems and is now run by Thomson Reuters, which is a business that has been an integral part of the U.S. legal system for more than a century.

By deploying Case Center — even on a small scale — courts will notice immediate, tangible benefits that will help them run both physical and virtual hearings.

As we hopefully move past the worst of the pandemic, courts must not fall back into bad habits. By pushing ahead with digital initiatives, they will be able to better serve citizens with justice that is not tied to one physical location.

In a decade’s time, we might look back and wonder why we ever thought that a court was just a building. 

Find out more about Case Center and request your free demo now.

About Thomson Reuters Case Center

Case Center — the award-winning global leader for preparation of trial files and electronic presentation of documentary and video evidence in the court room — is evidence sharing at its best. Our systems hold over 500,000 cases, with over 250 million pages of evidence held securely in the cloud.

Our solution reduces the time and effort required to prepare trial files and eliminates the direct and indirect costs of paper, PDFs, and multimedia submissions. In court, Case Center allows presentation of exhibits in physical and virtual hearings with personalized views for judges, attorneys, witnesses, and even the jury.