Transcript Judgment Formatting

Innovative use of IT in the
Federal Magistrates Service
Federal Magistrate Stuart Roberts
IT in a ‘start-up’ court
Needed to be operating as a fully established
court Australia wide by June 2000
•
very short establishment period
•
widely dispersed - Darwin to Launceston
•
very small support staff - only 1 federal
magistrate and 2 staff in many locations
•
need to provide services in regional
Australia
Leveraging existing
infrastructure
The major IT strategy has been to leverage off
the existing infrastructure of the Family Court
and, to a lesser extent, the Federal Court.
•
demonstrated that IT resources can be
successfully shared by courts, while
maintaining the operational
independence of each of the courts
•
success in large part due to highly
professional
services provided by the other
courts,
particularly the Family
Court IT services team
Access to highly developed
networks and systems
Leveraging gave immediate access to:
•
Lotus Notes messaging - e-mail absolutely
critical in a small widely dispersed
organisation
•
access to wide area network covering all
required locations and access to local area
networks
•
the use of existing case management
systems
Unique requirements
The FMS needs to be different - it wasn’t
established to replicate the other federal courts.
Therefore some IT developments are necessarily
unique, for example:
•
created own web-site as part of separate
corporate
identity
•
separate intranet - developed in Lotus Notes
by
Family Court but content only accessible
to FMS
•
developed a ‘committees database’ in Lotus
Notes,
in recognition of the need to
Casetrack - major
• development
Family Court will talk in detail about Casetrack CMS
• Also a major development for FMS:
– key aspect for the FMS is that we are confident our
separate business processes, which will inevitably diverge
from the other federal courts because of our legislative
mandate to handle simpler less complex matters, can be
accommodated within a common system
– another example of successful sharing of systems
•
FMS development focussing on the management
reporting/business intelligence capability
– significant information is available but needs reporting
and analysis tools to take full advantage
Casetrack -FMS End User Layer
•uses Oracle
Discoverer
•provides a
snapshot of the
Casetrack Case
Management
System
•provides
sophisticated ad hoc
SQL query
capabilities
•improved MIS
analysis for strategic
planning as well as
periodical reporting
Dispersed workforce
•
heavy reliance on e-mail as a form of
communication
•
no ‘admin staff’ in any location other than
Melbourne,
therefore need to take advantage of
technology:
–
use of digital recording and transmission of
central
transcriber
judgements to a
–
Corporate Express
local office supplies sourced on-line through
– payroll, accounts processed centrally - strong use of intranet on-line
forms
–
self booking arrangements for travel
–
central on-line booking of temporary staff (court officers) through Drak
Challenge of operating in
regional Australia
Strong commitment of the court to regional services:
•
all federal magistrates and associates using
Compaq
notebooks on circuit- some trialing
PDAs
•
trial of portable digital court recording software
•
working with regional courts to improve
telecommunication facilities
•
use of videoconferencing
• particularly useful in call-overs prior to conducting circuits
•
and
trialing ABS mapping software to ensure current
future circuits are targeting the appropriate
Other developments
• trialing voice recognition for some federal
magistrates
• use of telephone mentions :
–
reduces costs for clients - no need to attend court
–
conducted in same manner as if in court
–
telephone conference booked through Telstra
–
Telstra records the call and forwards the tape to FMS
– tapes can be transcribed if necessary by transcription
provider
• development of a database to track and distribute
Judgments & Appeals
A database to track and
distribute judgments for
publication
Judgments & Appeals
Judgments Process
–Issue a Citation
–Judgments Formatting
–Judgments Distribution
–Reporting and Analysis
Judgments & Appeals
Issuing Citations
•Associates requests a
Citation from Judgment
Officer
–sends Citation Request
Form
•Citation obtained from the
FMC Data Manager
database
*
FMS Matter No
*
Parties
*
FM
please tick a box
Category of
please tick a box 
Jurisdiction
–automatically issued
•Citation Request form
sent back to associates
with new Citation
–completes the audit trail

Jurisdiction
Citation
(issued by Judgments Officer)
Family Law
General Federal Law
Child Support
Family Law
Administrative Law
Bankruptcy
Human Rights
Migration
Privacy
Trade Practices
Practice/Procedure & Costs
Judgments & Appeals
Judgment Formatting
•Judgment Officer receives Judgment for quality
control
– family law judgments ‘sanitised’
•Completed judgment lodged on FMS Intranet
•Completed judgments sent to Information Officer
for distributing to external publishers
•Judgments details entered into FMC Data
Manager database
Judgment Distribution
Judgments sent
electronically to
various external
publishing houses
and FMS Web-site
eg:
Butterworths
CCH
Austlii
Casebase
Timebase
Law Book Company
HREOC
AG’s dept
AAT
Judgments & Appeal
Judgments & Appeal
Reporting & Analysis
FMC Data Manager
•Built in MS Access primarily designed to track
the judgments process from the issuing of
Citations, the distribution process on to the
appeals process
•Replaced the mainly manual reporting
process done in MS Word and MS Excel
•Reduced data entry times
•Improved reporting capabilities
•Analysis of the process has allowed for
productivity improvements and streamlining of
systems
Judgments & Appeals
The switchboard
All functions
are accessed
through the
one page
Areas include:
APPEALS
DISTRIBUTION
JUDGMENTS
REPORTS
SEARCH
An example
Issuing a Citation Screens
•shows the last 5 citations for Family
Law and General Federal Law at a
glance
•allows searching for Matter
numbers to establish whether any
other judgments or appeals are
attached to this number
•allows selection of Jurisdiction
•automatically chooses next
available citation
•starts the tracking process
•reports, that reflect any new
additions, can now be produced to
immediately rather than later as with
previous manual systems
•reduces repeat data entry
Judgments & Appeals
Judgments & Appeals
Reports & further
Reports
development
•many reports available in MS
Access and MS Word formats
•available immediately
•end user can request new
reports to aid in statistical
analysis
Future
•Web Interface and query
search functionality for FM’s
and associates
•Integration with Lotus Notes
databases
Future
Focus on on-line strategies that enable clients
to access services wherever they are:
•
enable them to interact with the court
without
having to physically leave their
community to
go to a court location
•
bring the court to them, electronically and
through effective court circuits
Challenge in making these strategies work for
legal professionals and self represented