Innovative use of IT in the Federal Magistrates Service

1. Innovative use of IT in the Federal Magistrates Service • Federal Magistrate Stuart Roberts

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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 • a range of software (eg Microsoft Office products) and experienced IT support staff

5. 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 manage the somewhat unique governance arrangements for the FMS flowing from its enabling legislation

6. 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 separatebusiness 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

7. 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 Casetrack-FMS End User Layer

8. 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 judgements to a central transcriber • local office supplies sourced on-line through Corporate Express • 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 Drake • trial use of on-line training from NETg through the corporate intranet • use of inexpensive ‘off the shelf’ software for payroll and finance eg MYOB for centralised processing

9. 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 • trialing ABS mapping software to ensure current and future circuits are targeting the appropriateregional locations

10. 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 for publication (focus of next series of slides)

11. Judgments & AppealsA database to track and distribute judgments for publication

12. Judgments & Appeals Judgments Process • Issue a Citation • Judgments Formatting • Judgments Distribution • Reporting and Analysis

13. Associates requests a Citation from Judgment Officer sends Citation Request Form Citation obtained from the FMC Data Manager database automatically issued Citation Request form sentback to associates with new Citation completes the audit trail Judgments & Appeals Issuing Citations

14. 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

15. 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 …. And more Judgments & Appeals Judgment Distribution

16. 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 Reporting & Analysis

17. All functions are accessed through the one page Areas include: APPEALS DISTRIBUTION JUDGMENTS REPORTS SEARCH Judgments & Appeals The switchboard

18. 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 significantly Judgments & Appeals An example

19. Reports 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 Judgments & Appeals Reports & further development

20. 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 litigants.