The Louisiana judge has created a virtual courtroom and is trying to digitize his colleagues
It has been a long time since we talk about legaltech. It turns out that in order to digitize legal processes, it is not necessary to hire a galley of IT workers or to have a talented nephew of the chief accountant who knows how to connect a printer a write a website for you. You can do it by yourself, even if you are just a judge.
Judge Scott U. Schlegel has been involved in online trials since 2013, when he was appointed as a judge in the 24th Judicial District Court of Jefferson County, Louisiana. Long before the pandemic made it the norm, he started channels with litigants on Slack, stopped criminal proceedings on Zoom, and encouraged others to communicate in the same way: defense attorneys with law enforcement officers, government representatives with lawyers, maybe even artists who draw sketches into the courtroom — well, you understood, he lured everyone into the chat room.
Then he launched a pilot online program for judges and plans to transfer all pre-trial matters there. It would seem whether there is any sense in inventing your own if earlier some guys with laptops already invented Zoom. But he did not fully satisfy the judge — saying, he does not cope when it is necessary to solve issues with two dozen representatives of lawyers at the same time and achieve at least some kind of efficiency.
Schlegel recreated his courtroom online based on Wonder, a virtual workspace site. A judge cannot force his colleagues to use his online tools (this is probably because he is not from the Pechersk district), but here is the link
Schlegel recreated his courtroom online (https://www.onlinejudge.us/civil-pilot) based on Wonder, a virtual workspace site. A judge cannot force his colleagues to use his online tools (this is probably because he is not from the Pechersk district), but here is the link, Schlegel says that he once passed a regulation according to which he could ask lawyers to use legaltech — however, they have the right to refuse.
The virtual hall based on Wonder reproduces the procedure as much as possible: lawyers check in with an assistant and then wait for the hearing in a virtual room, where you can even chat with representatives of the opposite side.
It is interesting and surprising that even after the many-month-long pandemic, Schlegel still states that people are unadapted to online communications. It’s not like a special virtual courtroom — even Slack is so disobedient to some that Schlegel’s clerks have to write reminder emails, “look into the chat”.
What about security? Although Schlegel is not an IT specialist, he is aware of online security. So he is categorically against the use of freemium products “Any judge or court administrator can improve the justice system for less than $1,000 a year,” — the judge promotes the paid legal software. At the same time, he is convinced that sometimes security issues are not really “issues” at all. He is not at all worried that someone will break into the Zoom session because you can break into an open court session physically (this is a very theoretical statement, but again, he is not from Pechersk…). No big deal.
And the judge also talks about other successes of digitalization: elementary things, such as the introduction of online calendar and planning meetings with all participants at a specific time so as not to force everyone to show up at 9 in the morning and live life in the corridors; automatic sending of SMS and emails with schedule reminders to reduce the number of defendants’ absences. Everything is simple — and everything works.
An interesting example from Louisiana is how you can clarify your professional path with technologies from below without waiting for action from above.
✍️ Kateryna Prohnimak
