Long-Range Issue #4

Modernize the Administration of Justice and Operation of Court Facilities

The administration of a state court system serving millions of people each year is a complex undertaking.  Managing the court system resources and personnel is further complicated by growing customer expectations, ever more complex legal issues and cases, and rapidly changing technology.  The judicial branch’s ability to assess its environment and respond appropriately will enhance the broad range of court services and technology solutions designed to meet the needs of court users.

People expect their courts to be effective, efficient, and convenient; they trust that due process will be followed, that disputes will be resolved fairly and in a timely manner, and that useful information will be available to them readily and without undue cost.  To meet these expectations, Florida’s courts system, which disposed of more than 3.2 million cases on average over each of the last five years, is always working to improve the processes it uses to accomplish its constitutional mission.  In general—but particularly during the pandemic—breakthroughs in the uses of technology prove to be essential in ensuring the efficiency, effectiveness, timeliness, and security of court processes.

While safeguarding the security of court data and technology systems is a fundamental concern, so too is the safeguarding of judges, court personnel, and court users—as well as of the court facilities themselves.  The branch takes seriously its responsibility to keep the physical and virtual doors of the courthouse open, while protecting everyone who works in or has business with the courts from emergencies or threats that could endanger them, disrupt court operations, or delay justice.

Long-Range Issue #4 Topics:

• Court Technology
• Emergency Preparedness

Court Technology

Technology has utterly transformed the way the branch meets the needs of judges, court personnel, justice system partners, court users, and the public.  Technology has become fundamental to the ways the judicial branch does business, underpinning court procedures, operations, services, and programs.  In recent years, Florida’s judicial branch has made significant advances in deploying technology to facilitate the effective, efficient, fair, and timely resolution of cases: it continues to make strides with innovations like electronic filing (eFiling); data collection, data management, and case management systems; technology solutions designed to expand access to justice (e.g., remote court interpreting services, online dispute resolution, the Do-It-Yourself Florida project); the automation of numerous court-related processes; services for the mobile environment; and cybersecurity services.

Information about court technology projects is ubiquitous and can be found in various sections of this annual report as well as throughout the Florida Courts website:

• To read about the Online Performance Indicator Dashboard for the district courts, the Trial Court Data Quality Initiative, Virtual Remote Interpreting, Online Dispute Resolution, and the Uniform Case Reporting—projects spearheaded by the supreme court’s performance and accountability commissions—see the article on Performance and Accountability above;
• For information on the Do-It-Yourself Florida project, designed to help self-represented litigants create electronic documents suitable for filing, go to the article on the Judicial Management Council above; 
• To learn about the Florida Courts Help App, a mobile-friendly pathway to the most requested court information and forms, view the Access to Civil Justice article above;
• Read about the courts system’s distance learning initiatives—a venture that burgeoned during the pandemic, which forced the cancellation of all in-person programing—in the article below on Education for Judges, Quasi-Judicial Officers, and Court Personnel;
• On the Florida Courts website, see the annual report of the Florida Courts Technology Commission, which oversees, manages, and directs the development and use of technology within the branch; coordinates and reviews recommendations concerning court policy matters that involve the use of technology; and establishes the technology policies and standards by which all court committees and workgroups must abide;
• Also on the Florida Courts website, under Court Technology, find descriptions of other current court technology projects. 

Below are particulars about some of the other technology initiatives of the 2019 – 2020 fiscal year.   

e-Notify, Florida’s Court Event Notification System

Electronic notifications—which include communications like text and email alert reminders and information—have been shown to spur more people to show up for court when they are required to do so, helping them avoid potential difficulties (for example, being charged with “failure to appear,” a separate criminal offence in Florida, carrying its own penalties)—and saving the state time and money (rescheduling cases is expensive and inefficient).  With a $750,000 appropriation from lawmakers for the 2018 – 19 fiscal year, Office of the State Courts Administrator (OSCA) staff worked with the Florida clerks of court to develop an information technology platform that supports sending reminders and information to court participants about court events.  The workgroup established an advisory group of judges and clerks of court; developed policy and other requirements and technical specifications for the platform; developed and conducted a competitive procurement; oversaw the work of the selected vendor in developing the platform; and collaborated on the development of web services to connect the platform to the Comprehensive Case Information System (a secured, single point of search for statewide court case information offered by the clerks of court).

From mid-October 2019 through mid-January 2020, a pilot of the program was conducted in Okaloosa, Orange, and Nassau counties.  During this time, the vendor and OSCA staff refined processes, adjusted platform functionality, and developed initial training and frequently asked questions.  In late January 2020, e-Notify was rolled out statewide for criminal case notifications, and in its first six months, more than 7,000 court users signed up for notifications: over 10,000 text and 13,000 email court event reminders were delivered by e-Notify.  OSCA staff are now working with judges, court staff, and clerks to determine the civil and county case types to which e-Notify will next expand.  OSCA staff are also developing methodologies to track e-Notify’s potential impact on failure to appear rates and court scheduling statistics.

Disaster Recovery Project

“Disaster recovery” signifies an organization’s strategies for reestablishing IT access and functionality after something goes wrong (e.g., a natural calamity, a server failure, a power failure, a building issue, or a cyberattack or any other human-induced disaster).  The goal of the Disaster Recovery Project, spearheaded by OSCA’s Office of Information Technology (OIT), was to create a disaster recovery location for Florida’s appellate courts, thereby ensuring the ongoing business of court processes.  With the establishment of this strategic disaster recovery site, the appellate courts will be able to function even if their buildings become unavailable for any reason.

Currently, the OIT is working on recovery for email, network, domain, and other systems.  Application support currently exists for eFACTS (the appellate courts’ case management system) and is being expanded to include all major court applications.  The goal is to have all major systems available by spring 2021.

IT Security/Risk Assessment Initiative

Protecting courts systems, data, and infrastructure is paramount in the digital age—and it is particularly true these days, given the unprecedented number of cyberattacks on state and local governments recently.  With courts relying increasingly on technology for all their business processes, managing security risks has become a dynamic challenge that must be addressed continuously.  The IT Security/Risk Assessment Initiative involved having an outside entity assess the courts system’s information technology risks, both in physical setups and daily practices, to determine the data systems’ vulnerability to outside attack as well as to internal mistakes.  This project supports OIT efforts to better protect court data and to strengthen court defenses against attempts to gather data by malicious entities, whether by brute force attacks or by manipulating court users to provide unauthorized access to court data systems.  The assessment is complete, and OIT is now working on remediating issues that were discovered.

Redesign of the Florida State Courts Website

During the 2019 – 2020 fiscal year, a team of OSCA and supreme court staff worked together to refresh the design, user experience, and functionality of the Florida State Courts website, mabaproject.com, which last underwent a redesign in 2014.  The team focused on improving the aesthetics and the user-experience generally, paying particular attention to the website’s most frequently sought content (for example, site analytics revealed that family law forms are the most sought-after content on the website; those forms are now featured prominently on the site).  Along with a sleek, modern look and a clean layout, the new website offers enhanced search capabilities, including live search using AI technology; a family law forms table structure that allows for easier access to search and sort forms by name, number, and date updated; and enhanced mobile device support.  In addition to being the web presence for OSCA, mabaproject.com is often the first or only place the public interacts with the state courts system; this new website, which went live in September 2020, was fashioned to help people quickly find the information they need and to give them easy entry to all the court-related resources OSCA makes available.    

Remote Teleworking Initiative

When COVID-19 struck, every business, service provider, and government entity across the globe had to reconceptualize how to work, manage day-to-day demands, and remain viable, productive, and relevant.  To keep the Florida courts functioning during the pandemic, the transition to teleworking for judges, quasi-judicial officers, and court staff was essential.

The near-seamless passage to teleworking would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of the OIT and of local IT staff in courts across the state.  Among their many achievements, IT staff procured and set up the equipment everyone needed to work remotely, making sure the infrastructure was in place to enable success; they rapidly procured Zoom videoconferencing software, determining license needs from all the state courts and negotiating a statewide contract; they identified and addressed IT environmental issues that were affecting Zoom meetings, Remote Desktop, and IT performance (bandwidth limitation, security device configurations, server configurations, application routing, etc.); they offered Remote Essentials Website/Microsoft Teams Trainings to help teleworkers learn how to work efficiently in their new media; they continue providing telecommuting remote desktop support, even working in shifts to ensure support services are available for people working unconventional hours; they continue providing reliable Helpdesk support for all end users, whether working remotely or onsite; they began providing support for online learning initiatives when it became apparent that in-person education programs and events would not be possible for an extended period of time; they have worked vigorously to elevate the courts’ cybersecurity posture, keeping a watchful eye over court information systems so that they remain secure, even while people work from home; and they remain dogged in their efforts to heighten cybersecurity awareness, ensuring everyone understands the potential risks of working remotely.

>

First Judicial Circuit IT staff John Gustafson and Michael Badon set up the public Zoom room monitor for remote county arraignments in Escambia County.

>

Judge Frederick L. Pollack, Sixth Judicial Circuit, was the first judge in the circuit to use Zoom for court proceedings.  Judge Pollack was part of a pilot program that the circuit's Court Technology Office set up to see what issues might arise when judges began using the videoconferencing tool en masse.

>

Nineteenth Judge Nicole Menz, Indian River County, conducts criminal court by videoconference.  

>

Tenth Circuit IT staff set up and test a public virtual court station at one of the branch courthouses.

>

A virtual courtroom in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit.

Emergency Preparedness

Within two months of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in November 2001, then Chief Justice Charles T. Wells established the Workgroup on Emergency Preparedness, assigning it two charges: develop action plans for the supreme court for a variety of emergency situations, “including natural disasters, terrorism, and extended information systems outages”; and develop statewide emergency preparedness guidance for the entire judicial branch.  He urged the workgroup to build its recommendations on two statewide branch policies: protect the lives and provide for the safety of judges, other constitutional officers, staff, and visitors to the court; and keep the courts open to ensure justice for the people.  For he recognized that the security of court facilities and of everyone on their premises is central to the branch’s constitutional mandate to ensure that justice is administered without delay.

Deputy marshals at the entrance to the Florida Supreme Court.

Emergency preparedness comprises preparation for unavoidable natural disasters such as pandemics, tornadoes, floods, tropical storms, and, of course, hurricanes (Florida is the nation’s most hurricane-prone state).  It also includes preparing for human-made disasters and threats—calamities like oil spills, biohazards, protracted information systems outages, cyberattacks, and military or terrorist attack-related incidents.  Preparing for hazards and menaces of all sorts is an ongoing responsibility, and the judicial branch takes a multi-pronged approach to meeting it: each court has a preparedness plan and a continuity of operations plan, and each court designates a court emergency management team, an emergency coordinating officer, and a public information officer.  In addition, the supreme court’s Court Emergency Management Group (CEMG) recommends policy for, prepares for, and responds to emergencies in the supreme court building and in state courts across Florida.

Preparing for, Responding to, and Recovering from Emergencies

Typically, Florida’s most treacherous nature-induced disasters are hurricane-related.  Florida enjoyed a much-needed break from major hurricane impacts in 2019 and was largely spared from most of the aggressive damage of the 2020 season—which memorably saw 30 named storms and 13 US strikes.  In August 2020, Tropical Storm Isaias threatened the east coast of Florida; storm impacts were relatively light, although courts did have to close in the Seventh and Seventeenth Circuits.  Florida’s most severe storm struck in September: Hurricane Sally’s slow assault on the western Panhandle brought destructive winds and massive storm surge, extreme rainfall, and far-reaching inland flooding; courts were closed in the First, Second, and Fourteenth Circuits.  Then in November, after battering Nicaragua as a category 4 storm, Hurricane Eta brushed through the Florida Keys and South Florida as a tropical storm, headed north as a hurricane again, and then weakened once again into a tropical storm, making landfall on the west central Florida coast; Eta caused court closures in the Seventh, Eleventh, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Twentieth Circuits.

The branch’s emergency coordinators are always especially vigilant during hurricane season, but throughout 2020, the primary focus of the CEMG, along with the local emergency coordinating officers and emergency management teams, was to ensure that the work of justice could continue during the COVID-19 pandemic.  As explained by Mr. Steven Hall, the branch’s statewide emergency coordinating officer, “Over a matter of months, the courts system moved from preparing for an emergency (the pandemic), to emergency operations (the immediate impacts, protective measures, closures, etc.), to operating in an emergency.”  As early as January, before experts could know how widely the virus had already spread in the US, Florida’s health and emergency management communities recognized the potential for a pandemic and began to prepare.  By February, when it was evident that COVID-19 would become a global pandemic, Mr. Hall began holding regular meetings of the CEMG and initiated routine communications with the courts’ emergency coordinating officers and branch leaders.

Fortunately, the CEMG already had a considerable inventory of resources for use in the event of a pandemic influenza (the type of pandemic most often predicted): soon after the 2002 – 2003 SARS outbreak, the CEMG recognized that the branch needed to be prepared for influenza pandemics and spearheaded the development of a Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, a Pandemic Influenza Benchguide, a Pandemic Staffing Guide, pandemic influenza planning templates, and a pandemic preparedness flyer.  Because it was clear that the coronavirus would be different from a pandemic influenza, each of these resources had to be updated and redistributed.  (Many of these resources are available online.)  Meanwhile, the CEMG continued to research the coronavirus and to reach out regularly to the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, the Florida Department of Health, the National Center for State Courts, and other experts for information, guidance, and updates.  By March, the first coronavirus cases were reported in Florida.

Reminders to practice social distancing are posted throughout Florida’s courthouses.

In early March, Chief Justice Canady issued the first COVID-related administrative order, which spotlighted monitoring the virus and planning in response to COVID-19; in quick succession came orders curtailing work-related travel, providing guidance on self-quarantining after personal travel, setting essential and critical proceedings, and authorizing flexibility to operate remotely.  (See the statewide orders, rules, and advisories.)  The emergency coordinating officers, trial court administrators, marshals, and others in branch leadership positions braced themselves to react to rapidly changing environments.  To mitigate the impact of COVID-19 while keeping the courts open to the fullest extent consistent with public safety, court access had to be limited; public areas had to be reconfigured; and systems, processes, and policies had to be redesigned to allow for working, hearing case events, and processing administrative and other matters remotely.  Additional licenses and equipment had to be procured (e.g., laptops, webcams, microphones, licenses/upgrades for videoconferencing systems), as did personal protective equipment, disinfection supplies, and other goods and services necessary to allow for safe working conditions.

When it became evident that COVID-19 would become a global pandemic, courts began purchasing personal protective equipment, disinfection supplies, and other goods and services necessary to allow for safe working conditions.

On April 21, the chief justice established the Workgroup on the Continuity of Court Operations and Proceedings During and After COVID-19 to propose guidance—based on the advice of public health experts, medical professionals, or others with expertise in the management of a pandemic and the latest health advisories and safety guidelines—for protective measures that will allow the progressive and safe return of judges, personnel, parties, counsel, jurors, and the public to court facilities.  Once approved, workgroup recommendations are implemented via administrative orders, and courts are directed to follow them.  For example, each court was required to develop an operational plan that outlines how it will handle various aspects of its operations for each of the four anticipated phases of the pandemic; as it becomes possible for each court to expand its operations, it must monitor and adjust its operational plan and associated policies, processes, and systems to meet its changing demands and needs while operating in the pandemic.  All Florida courts are currently in Phase 2, which means that in-person contact is authorized for certain purposes but requires the use of protective measures.  Emergency coordinating officers continue managing operations as courts proceed into the various phases, and the Office of the State Courts Administrator continues to provide guidance and support to the courts throughout pandemic.