Eighteen Ways Courts Should use Technology to Better Serve Their Customers

• Published date: 01 October 2019
• Author: John M. Greacen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12446
• Date: 01 October 2019

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

EIGHTEEN WAYS COURTS SHOULD USE TECHNOLOGY TO BETTER

SERVE THEIR CUSTOMERS

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John M. Greacen

Courts have traditionally used technology to enhance their internal operations. “Outward-facing”technology focuses on meet-

ing the needs of the court’s customers. The article gives 18 examples of such technology and shows how better serving a

court’scustomers provides direct benefits to the court itself.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

Courts should require their vendors to provide “outward-facing”technology applications designed to meet the needs

of court users.

Eighteen examples of such applications and the benefits that accrue to courts that provide them to their customers are

explored.

The adoption of the component model advocated by the COSCA/NACM/NCSC Joint Technology Committee will

expedite the development and deployment of “outward-facing”court technologies.

Keywords: Automated Notification of Court Procedural Requirements; Component Model Architecture; and Outward-

Facing Technology.

For over 20 years, courts have had national functional standards that describe the functional

capabilities they should demand in court case management systems to ensure that automation meets

their internal data-processing needs. But what about the equally—if not more—important needs of

the courts’customers when it comes to technology?

Courts, by their nature, are in the business of customer service, but consistent research on the

experience and attitudes of court customers shows that they do not rate our courts highly. The

National Center for State Courts (NCSC) conducts annual surveys of American voters, through the

Public Trust and Confidence Study, to gauge their perceptions of the state courts. The 2017 survey

found that only 52 percent of those questioned believe the state courts provide good customer ser-

vice.

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By a margin of two to one, American voters report that judges do not understand the chal-

lenges facing the people who appear in their courtrooms.

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Survey respondents report that their most serious concerns are not knowing where to turn for

help with forms and procedures (37 percent); rude, unhelpful, and intimidating court staff (35 per-

cent); not knowing where to go in the courthouse (29 percent); the amount of time spent at the

courthouse (27 percent); and not being able to complete forms or pay fees online (24 percent).

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Sixty-nine percent feel that the situation has not gotten better in recent years.

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Respondents were, however, able to prioritize commonsense solutions to the problems they iden-

tified: plain-language legal forms that nonlawyers can understand and complete; the ability to con-

nect with court staff online or by phone to answer questions rather than traveling to the courthouse;

and self-help services that allow users to file a form, pay a fine, or take other actions online instead

of coming to the courthouse.

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Corresponding: john@greacen.net

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 57 No. 4, October 2019 515–538

© 2018 IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System

“Reprinted by permission of IAALS.”Here is the original publication for reference: https://iaals.du.edu/sites/default/files/documents/

publications/eighteen_ways_courts_should_use_technology.pdf.

It is clear from this research that court customers expect the courts to use technology to solve

many of their customer service problems. This is not surprising. In all other aspects of daily life,

customers are used to—and demand—services that are available to them through the internet. Peo-

ple go online to order groceries and retail goods, they bank online, they renew their driver’s licenses

online, they buy homes online, they find information on every issue under the sun online, and they

videoconference and Skype with family, friends, and business partners around the world. It is also

clear from this NCSC research, though, that court customers find the state courts to be severely lac-

king in these capabilities.

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In today’s courts, self-represented parties are clearly the most numerous of the courts’customers

and are probably also the ones most in need of many of these technological improvements. Recent

research has shown that three-quarters of all civil cases in state courts and a slightly lower percent-

age of family cases (72 percent) involve persons coming to court without a lawyer.

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The same is

true for misdemeanor and traffic cases—only a small percentage of defendants in these cases have

lawyers.

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Unlike lawyers who come to the courthouse frequently, most self-represented litigants are one-

time court users. They report that their experience in the court is bewildering, intimidating, and

frustrating because they do not understand the language used, the rules applied, or the process

followed in the court.

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Whereas the NCSC’s 2017 Public Trust and Confidence Study showed that

well over half of survey respondents felt they would want a lawyer anytime they were dealing with

the court system (because they see it as too complicated to navigate without one), fully a third

would prefer to represent themselves and expect the courts to provide the self-help resources needed

to make that a reality.

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Recognizing these issues and the fact that the family justice system was built on a premise that

is no longer true—that litigants are always represented by lawyers—the Institute for the Advance-

ment of the American Legal System (IAALS) created the Court Compass project.

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The project has

two objectives: simplify the family law process and increase the use of technology to empower liti-

gants with tools, information, and assistance to navigate the simpler process. This report is a part of

the Court Compass project’s second objective.

In this effort, IAALS is working with the Joint Technology Committee (of the Conference of

State Court Administrators, National Association for Court Management, and National Center for

State Courts), which is engaged in the development of the Next-Generation Court Technology Stan-

dards.

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The “NextGen”Standards are premised on a “component-based”technology model.

Instead of the traditional “unitary”court case management system—a massive single set of software

code—the component model consists of a set of stand-alone coded modules that communicate with

each other using a standard interface. This component model allows the vendor community to

develop and market “best of class”components, without having to develop a complete case man-

agement application in order to enter the court information technology (IT) market. It allows courts

to procure and assemble a set of components that provide maximum value for each court’s individ-

ual needs.

As the Joint Technology Committee defines the contents of each of its 28 currently identified

NextGen components,

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IAALS’s Court Compass project is providing input from the court user

perspective for the committee’s consideration. This report highl ights those user perspectives and

provides readers with an introduction to, and a strong endorsement of, the NextGen component

model.

It also responds to, and attempts to change, the perception of court technology vendors that

the courts are not interested in technology designed to meet the needs of their customers—that

they are interested only in technology that addresses the court’s internal operations. When urged

to incorporate a client-serving feature into one of their products, vendors typically respond that

although they could do this with relatively little effort, “none of our court clients are asking

for that.”

This vendor response, and the reported court perspective underlying it, contain a false underlying

premise—that investing in customer-serving technology will not benefit the court itself. In this

516 FAMILY COURT REVIEW