Legal System Nowadays

But if we don`t take the plunge, how can we ever innovate? The answer here is not to jump into the deepest part of the pool right away. It is mainly about wading in shallow water. It is widely recognized in the technology community that the best way to introduce complex new systems is to start simple and build gradually, based on experience. It is also widely accepted that it is not advisable to start with the most difficult problems and systems and develop revolutionary systems from scratch. The failure rate of pioneering public sector technology projects is alarming. The second part of work is much more ambitious and will be foreign to most justice workers. One way to understand it is this: If we could start from a blank sheet of paper — no buildings, no judicial functions, no officials, no procedures, no technology—and we were asked to rethink our justice system from scratch, what would it look like? Instead, if I am in favour of extending it to the courts, I propose that we build «frontals» and, as the wording suggests, submit them to our traditional judicial services. I import the term «frontends» from the tech world (and, I accept, confuse it a bit). The basic idea here is that we are introducing a new set of services and processes that will be made available to the disputing parties before they have to use the court`s traditional judicial service, whether physical or remote. The goal is to resolve or distract latent legal disputes. In Online Courts and the Future of Justice, I argued that a promising answer to the problem of access to justice is to use technology to transform the judicial service. Simply continuing to automate our courts (the strategy of almost every government) would simply lead to «chaos for less.» This would mean optimizing a process that is no longer fit for purpose, no matter how polite. When it was published, my book was fairly well received by the legal technology and legal innovation communities.

But it is increasingly difficult to convince the entire legal establishment to advocate for change. I suggest that the following six actions be the short-term priorities that will stabilize and improve current ad hoc systems and minimize disruption during the crisis: In a typical court case, the first step to resolving a legal problem was to file documents with the court clerk to file a lawsuit. The opposing parties then appear before the court to find out the status of the case, indicate whether they were able to reach an agreement and determine the necessary steps before the trial. The process usually also involves the presentation of evidence, including documents that must be signed and attested by a third party, as well as progress reports on negotiations, review of evidence, and other tasks. And if the dispute is not resolved before the hearing date, the parties appear before a judge. In contrast, litigants without legal representation, particularly those with other accessibility needs, faced significant disadvantages, even though the systems were technically open to them. For example, users who do not have access to high-speed Internet or a computer face significant barriers when trying to access the courts using the new tools available. And while technology promises to improve the legal system for people with disabilities and limited English proficiency, courts – like various other government departments – are struggling to ensure their technology is accessible to all users.5 Of the nearly 10,000 pandemic-related national and local ordinances reviewed as part of this study, none specifically addressed technological adaptations for people with disabilities and limited English skills. Police are much more likely to stop, search and arrest people of color. They are more likely to use violence against blacks than against whites, often without consequences themselves. After an arrest, people of color and people living in poverty have significantly worse experiences in the criminal justice system than white and wealthy people. People who can afford to pay bail, for example, can return to work and family while awaiting trial.

In a country where more than 25 percent of respondents in a 2021 survey said there are no emergency savings, many can`t afford to buy their freedom. As a result, more than half of the people who fill U.S. prisons haven`t even been convicted of a felony. The coercive nature of pretrial detention can force people to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit, simply to avoid spending months or even years in prison awaiting trial. But for now, I want to focus on the second core service of online courts, which I call the «extended court.» The idea is that in a digital society where most people have access to the internet, our courts should provide services beyond their primary function of making binding and authoritative decisions, supported by the coercive power of the state. Among the advanced services I described in Online Courts and the Future of Justice are decision trees and diagnostic systems that can help court users, especially those who represent themselves, understand their claims and obligations. Guides that help identify solution options available to users; tools that can help non-lawyers organize their evidence and formulate their arguments; facilities to encourage and assist parties to resolve their differences themselves; Social workers who can actively provide mediation and other services in the spirit of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), not as a private sector offering, but as an integral part of the public judicial service. Most modern legal systems can be described as either common law, civil law, or a mixture of both. The third and long-standing challenge stems from an alarming truth: even in judicial systems, which we consider to be the most advanced, dispute resolution in public courts is usually too time-consuming, too expensive, and the process is incomprehensible to everyone except lawyers. More broadly, we call this the problem of «access to justice.» We can choose to blame the across-the-board cuts in public legal funding, we can argue that the current judicial and judicial system is disproportionate in many cases, we can argue that lawyers are sometimes the problem because they can fuel litigation, we can regret the little data available to help us understand the dilemma in the first place, We can condemn the system as outdated and obscure and much more.

But whatever the preferred explanation, the harsh reality is that most people on our planet cannot afford to assert their legal claims in public courts. Around the world, the statistics are striking. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, only 46% of the population lives under the protection of the law. «The police have been placed in a very difficult system by a legislature that meets the demands of the election season.» When courthouses began to close, policymakers and judges quickly explored various technical options.