Ricci Dipshan, Legaltech News
In Miami, the integrated courtroom
was used for international litigation, with witnesses in different time zones
and language barriers
The fully integrated
electronic courtroom has arrived on American shores. Litigation services and
software company Opus 2 International announced the completion of what it
called the "first integrated 'pop-up' electronic courtroom built for
paperless trials" in Miami, and confirmed the opening of a similar
electronic courtroom in New York in early September.
Brenda Mahedy, head of global
marketing at Opus 2 International, noted that while "various disparate
hearing room services already exist in the U.S., such as trial presentation
tools, third-party interpretation services, video conferencing," it is
rare that all these services "are fully integrated with one another,
yielding a much more seamless and efficient process" during trial.
While Opus 2, best known for
its cloud-based collaborative work platform Magnum, could not disclose the
details of the Miami trial for which the electronic courtroom was built, it
noted the parties were two multinational companies with branches in the United
States, U.K. and Europe engaged in international litigation. Both parties came
to the trial with an extensive array of technology and witness services,
including evidence and trial presentation technologies and French, Spanish and
English interpretation services.
As the global economy
"naturally leads to more cross-border matters and arbitrations that span
multiple jurisdictions," Mahedy said, electronic courtrooms can prove
pivotal by enabling "remote lawyers, arbitrators and witnesses to engage
with the proceedings and contribute as though they were physically located in
the room."
The increase of international
litigation in U.S. court, she added, will help build momentum toward leveraging
technology for use during trials.
Writing for Legaltech News, Clare Foley, vice president
for litigation solutions for Opus 2, noted that while slow to take off, there
are already instances of courts using of trial tech, such as state courts in
Texas and Utah, which require the electronic filing of all civil cases.
On the federal level, U.S.
district courts in the District of Columbia, the Western District of Michigan,
the Central District of California and the Western District of Kentucky also
provide evidence presentation capabilities, primarily though the addition of
audio and video hardware in their courtrooms, Foley added.
Foley reasoned that the
broader move toward electronic courtrooms in the United States is challenged by
the country's decentralized courts systems, which can vary in their ability to
implement legal technology and by their organizational structure and standard
procedures.
The slow pace of courtroom
digitization in the United States is in stark contrast to the rampant changes
happening in the U.K., where electronic courtrooms first landed in the 2012
trial of Berezovsky v. Abramovich . The trial sparked a push by U.K. judicial
authorities toward modernizing the country's courts and legal systems.
In 2013, for example,
then-justice minister Damian Green announced £160 million in government funding toward launching
paperless electronic courtrooms throughout the country by investing in Wi-Fi,
court presentation and collaboration software, and audio and visual hardware,
among other improvements. In 2014, the justice ministry announced an additional £75 million toward upgrading the
technology at the U.K.'s HM Courts & Tribunals Service.
The adoption of trial
technology in the U.K. can in part be attributed to the unique nature of its
justice system, Mahedy said. "The model for litigation in the U.K. is
based on a shared trial bundle that is aggregated and agreed before entering
the hearing room," she explained. "This naturally leads to a more
collaborative arrangement when deciding upon the technology, equipment and
services to be used during the hearings. Additionally, places like the U.K. and
Singapore have very mature initiatives in place for electronic litigation,
whereas the U.S. court system is more fragmented in that respect."
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