Transcript OASIS: Integrating Standards for Web Services, Business

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Introducing the Electronic Court
Filing (ECF) 3.0 Specification
LegalXML’s Electronic Court Filing Specification
(Approved by the COSCA/NACM Joint Technology
Committee as a Recommended Standard)
Today’s Topics
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ECF Basics
Standardization
Background
Business Needs Supported
Benefits of the Standard
Future Directions
Case Study
Why do I need to know about
Electronic Court Filing technical
standards?
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As state and local courts prepare for electronic filing, they must pay
attention to what all other courts are doing…because…
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If each court or vendor designed e-filing in its own way…
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A system is required to cover technical actions and informationexchanges to accomplish all necessary tasks for e-filing.
Those who e-file in one court would have difficulty e-filing in a second
court that does e-filing differently.
No one could comply with the technical requirements of many
fundamentally different e-filing systems.
Litigants would choose not to e-file and e-filing systems would fail!
There must be technical standards on which all e-filing systems are
based if e-filing is to succeed in state and local courts.
What does use of technical
standards in our electronic court
filing systems get us?
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“Interoperability”
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E-filing systems become “inter-operable” by complying
with the same technical standards.
E-filing messages can be transmitted, understood, and
accepted…
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Between
Between
Between
Between
one attorney or filer and another
a filer and a given court
a filer and other courts
different courts
…Even though each court and each firm or individual
will have separately developed e-filing applications,
use different operating systems, and run “incompatible”
computer systems.
What technical things
need standardizing?
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E-filing involves XML (eXtensible Markup
Language) technology
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XML is both powerful and complex.
It has strict rules and practices that must be exact.
Different systems must use the same data tags and
terms in order to be compatible at the technical level.
E-filing requires a common filing “architecture”
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Different systems need the same basic design
elements to perform necessary e-filing functions.
The “messages” necessary for e-filing transactions
must be built in the same ways.
What about e-filing
business practices?
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If each e-filing system is designed locally,
being quite different from others…
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Users would need to master many different
business rules and practices.
A proposed standard for electronic filing
business and process practices was adopted
for courts in 2003. See it at:
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http://ncsconline.org/D_Tech/standards/Documents/pdfdocs/Recommended_
%20Process_%20standards_02_26_03.pdf
This document has a very good introduction to the basic
concepts of electronic filing (approx. the first 50 pages).
Filing Architecture
Filer
Electronic
Filing
Service
Provider
E-Filing
Management Service
Court Case
Management
(CMS) and
Document
Management
(DMS)
systems
• ECF 3.0 provides the means to generate end-to-end benefits for the e-filer.
• E-filed information and documents move through an electronic service
provider to the court’s CMS (Case Management System) and DMS (Document
Management System), and information (e.g., whether the e-filing was successful
or failed) flows back to the filer.
• The real savings that relieve court workloads comes from integrating the efiling system with the Court’s case and document management systems..
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History of E-Filing Specifications
 In 1999, the Joint Technology Committee (JTC) of COSCA and NACM
chose the Legal XML organization to be its technical drafting committee
for XML standards supporting electronic filing.
• In 2000 and 2002, the JTC adopted as proposed standards the Electronic
Court Filing (ECF) 1.0 and 1.1 specifications and the Query and
Response specification developed by Legal XML.
• These standards are in use today. Vendors have used them as the
foundations for their electronic filing products. Individual court and state
judiciary electronic filing implementations have also used them.
 In 2001 Legal XML became the LegalXML Member Section of OASIS and
its ECFTC assumed responsibility for developing future versions of XML
electronic filing technical specifications.
Who developed these standards?
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OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information
Standards) is the standards-development group where the:
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The LegalXML Electronic Court Filing Technical Committee developed
“Electronic Court Filing 3.0” (ECF 3.0) as a specification for court e-filing
systems.
ECF 3.0, when approved by the boards of COSCA (Council of State Court
Administrators) and NACM (National Association for Court Management), will
become a “recommended standard” for court e-filing systems.
ECF 3.0 conforms with another important standard: the law, safety, and
justice vocabulary of XML “data elements” in the National Information
Exchange Model (NIEM) and Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM)
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This ensures that the same XML markup tags are used for the same things
in court e-filing.
Thus, e-filing transaction messages, document “meta-data,” and marked-up
document content are all using the same “language.”
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ECF 3.0 supports these
business needs (p. 1 of 3)
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Courts that can receive documents electronically are able to improve
document management and access while reducing data entry.
ECF 3.0 covers e-filing documents when initiating a new case and e-filing
documents in an existing case.
It also addresses e-filing documents for an existing case from law firms
and other filers to a court for entry into the court’s official case record.
ECF 3.0 includes support for common data, court-specific data, and
unique data associated with the following kinds of court cases:
* Civil (including general civil, mental health, probate and
conservatorship, and small claims)
* Criminal, both Misdemeanor and Felony
* Domestic Relations (including divorce, separation, custody and support,
domestic violence, and paternity)
* Juvenile (delinquency and dependency)
* Traffic Citations, and
* Bankruptcy.
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ECF 3.0 supports these
business needs (p. 2 of 3)
• Courts need to e-file (e.g. orders) and court clerks need to e-file (e.g.,
notices). ECF 3.0 supports their e-filing of documents for processing into the
court record.
• Courts with e-filing need to provide for electronic online fee payments. ECF
3.0 allows for the financial transactions necessary for accepting filing fees,
fines, and other financial obligations paid online.
• Clerks must review filings before entering them on the docket (or register of
actions) and placing them into the case files. ECF 3.0 provides for a clerk’s
filing review workflow steps, including the actions that integrate e-filings with
the court’s Case Management System (CMS) and Document Management
System (DMS).
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ECF 3.0 supports these
business needs (p. 3 of 3)
• ECF 3.0 provides for filers sending electronic queries to receive a specific
court’s policies (requirements) related to electronic filing.
• ECF 3.0 supports notices to the e-filer that the e-filing was received, along
with notices the e-filing has been entered into the case record; it also provides
for ways to check the status of an e-filed document.
• ECF 3.0 allows for electronic service upon attorneys and parties in a case.
 ECF 3.0 does not support “initial service,” sometimes called “service
of process,” involving documents that establish a court’s jurisdiction over
the parties to a newly opened case.
ECF 3.0, however, does not require a court to support electronic service
if it does not choose to do so.
• ECF 3.0 includes actions taken to grant or restrict access to court records
(e.g., case calendars, registers of action, and e-filed documents).
• ECF 3.0 incorporates advanced technology to secure document and message
transmissions, authentication, integrity, and security.
Benefits from Adopting ECF 3.0
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Leverage “Best-in-Class” concepts
Ensure interoperability with other e-filing
systems
Find support for development using a
scalable approach
Contribute to the ongoing improvement
of the standard
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Where is ECF 3.0 going?
• By November 15, 2005, the ECFTC approved the ECF 3.0 specification as an
OASIS Committee Draft and began the approval process by submitting the
specification to the JTC for consideration as a proposed standard.
• The JTC’s adoption of the ECF 3.0 specification as a proposed standard has
launched a period of implementation and testing.
•ECF 3.0 is undergoing experimental implementation in actual courts, to test
transactions between those courts and e-filing vendors to validate that there is
“interoperability.”
•In time, there will be enhanced support for e-filings with appellate courts and
administrative tribunals; there will be support for e-filings in additional case
categories listed in the NCSC State Court Guide to Statistical Reporting, such
as civil traffic, parking, and local ordinance violations.
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Where is ECF 3.0 going?
• ECFTC hopes to develop a means for electronic service of process, which
involves the delivery of documents such as summonses, subpoenas, and
warrants that establish a court’s jurisdiction over the parties to a case.
• Also needed is support for non-case-related e-filings of matters submitted to
the court clerk’s office, such as applications for notaries, requests for bonding
authorities and for establishing bond limits, and licenses.
• The ECF 3.0 specification may be considered for expansion to cover other
non-case filings submitted to clerks of court, such as deeds, mortgages, liens
and other real property instruments, security instruments, and liens on personal
property.
• The ECF must support future releases of the National Information Exchange
Model (NIEM) and GJXDM (Global Justice XML Data Model).
Review
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ECF 3.0 will benefit courts that have e-filing
ECF is ready for deployment now
Support can be requested (through LegalXML and
OASIS) for help with adopting the recommended
standards
Ongoing work by the ECFTC will continue to add
functions and capabilities to the specification
Case Study 1
Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County
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Our First E-Filing Experience
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Complex Civil Litigation Pilot Project
Contracted Vendor LexisNexis® File & Serve
Mandatory E-Filing for Complex Cases
Attorneys use vendor to E-File, clerk staff use vendor system to review
filings, and Judges and judicial staff use vendor system to review and rule on
filings.
Lessons Learned
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Services vendors offer the legal community are essential
24 / 7 phone and email support offered by vendors is essential
The Court discovered it did not want to force our customers to use a
prescribed e-filing system
The Court wanted more flexibility to manage and improve the functionality of
Clerk Review and Judge Review, to more tightly integrate them with our case
and document management systems.
Case Study 1 (cont)
Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County
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As a result of this pilot, and the lessons learned, we
concluded we would like to pursue a multi-vendor efiling model.
What are the next steps?
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Create our own E-Filing Manager (Clerk Review and Judge
Review).
Tightly integrate our EFM with case and document management
systems.
Select e-filing vendors.
Work with e-filing vendors to integrate their systems with the Court’s
Electronic Filing Management (EFM) system.
Case Study 1 (cont)
Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County
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Challenge: How do we integrate vastly different vendor e-filing systems
with the Court’s EFM?
Answer: Adopt ECF 3.0 Standards
Why?
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ECF allows the Court to provide and manage a ‘single’ method to accept
filings from multiple entities.
ECF allows the Court to use standard technologies already adopted within
the justice community (i.e., XML and Web Services)
ECF allows the Court to develop and publish complete and detailed
integration specifications for vendors to utilize for integration with our EFM.
ECF allows the Court to easily expand e-filing efforts and integrate in a
standard way with other Courts or Government agencies.
The future may even allow for sophisticated law firms to act as their own EFiling vendors, integrating directly with the Court.
Case Study 1 (cont)
Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County
Questions?
Getting the E-Filing Specification (ECF 3.0):
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=legalxml-courtfiling
Contacting the Committee:
Thomas Clarke, [email protected], Chair
John Greacen, [email protected], Chair
Thanks to the many contributors to
the standard!