Judge Robertson Eyes Technological Horizon

Judge James Robertson (D.D.C.) has been a member of the Information Technology Committee since 1996, and was named committee chair in 2003. Robertson was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 1994.

_Q:What is the jurisdiction of the Committee on Information Technology?

_A:The IT Committee’s jurisdiction is to recommend "broad IT goals, objectives, and priorities." What we actually talk about is the IT budget, the architecture of the Judiciary’s IT system, network security, IT policy, and long-range IT thinking.

_Q:As chair of the CM/ECF Subcommittee for a number of years, you were close to the implementation of electronic case files systems. What was the greatest hurdle you overcame in bringing CM/ECF to the courts? What are CM/ECF’s benefits to you as a judge?

_A:The changeover from the old ICMS system to CM/ECF and its associated change from paper to electronic filing is probably the biggest administrative project in the history of the Judiciary. The "greatest hurdle" has been, and still is, the hugeness of the project and the complexity of planning and organizing it, training people, and buying the equipment—not to mention designing and writing the software.

But if by "hurdle" you mean resistance, there’s been very little of that. CM/ECF was designed from the get-go with enough flexibility that almost any judge’s approach to it can be accommodated. Some will naturally be resistant to change, but most who have hands-on experience with CM/ECF are excited about it and really look forward to the benefits it will bring.

About three-quarters of my own cases are on CM/ECF now, and the reduction in the amount of paper coming across my desk has been stunning. With a couple of mouse clicks—working from home, if I like—I can get a file, go as deeply into it as I like, and print out what I want. Everything I need is right at my fingertips almost instantaneously. It’s much more convenient for counsel, and I find that I respond much more quickly and easily to the dozens of routine matters that I have to deal with every day.

_Q:On the recommendation of the Automation and Technology Committee, the Judicial Conference agreed to urge each court to consider creating a local information technology committee. What is the purpose of these committees and how successful have they been?

_A:This is a good place to give special mention to Judge Roger Strand in the District of Arizona, who was an enthusiastic member of the IT committee for six years. The local IT committee was one of the many projects Roger initiated in his district, and we adopted it as policy for the nation. Most courts now have IT committees, and I think they are of great importance. Technology has been "pushed out" to the courts. Now they need local policies and local coordination to make the best use of it.

IT committees are also promoting innovation at the local court level that can be passed on to all of us. CM/ECF has taught us the value of what the consultants call the "ink blot" theory of implementation, where expertise can be "spread" from one district to adjacent districts. Through the leadership of Judge Tom Marten of the District of Kansas, we have mounted an effort to collect and showcase project innovations that are coming out of local court units. The 5th Circuit will soon put up a website that will be a clearinghouse for ideas that are the product of local IT innovation. Good ideas spread.

_Q:Within the next few years multiple court support and stewardship systems will become operational through the Judiciary–like PACTS, FAS4T, HRMIS, and CM/ECF. What new systems are expected after this wave of technology?

_A:As your question suggests, we have a lot to digest in the near future. Clerks’ offices around the country deserve credit for the enormous amount of effort they are devoting to implementing the IT systems that are being rolled out now. Bringing these systems fully on-line, complete with the business changes they will bring about, will take several years. It will be a while before we’ll be ready to do much more.

However, there are two areas that I think need attention in the near future. One is making better use of the Lotus Domino/Notes software, which has the capacity for addressing the software application needs of local court units far beyond simple e-mail. The other is the perennial issue of personal and court calendars. While it seems that everyone wants something different, we will work with the Bankruptcy Committee and the Committee on Court Administration and Case Management to see if it might be possible to come up with at least a few calendar templates that might address the needs of many judges, perhaps using the Domino/Notes platform.

_Q:Computer security and the security of files is a concern for any business. What is being done to ensure the security of the Judiciary’s files and computers?

_A:The National Security Agency is doing a study right now of the Judiciary’s wide-area network security and vulnerability. We have an ongoing program, and an extensive one, to protect our national network from intrusion from unauthorized outsiders. We have the capability of coordinating our response to hackers and IT security "events" with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

But security is a people problem as much as it is a technical one. We need to step up our security training and increase security awareness Judiciary-wide. Security is not a trivial problem. Judges don’t have sensitive national security information on their computers, so they may regard security as a relatively low priority matter, but the fact is that hackers and other malicious-minded people are out to steal information or damage our network on a daily basis. We are very concerned about network and data security, and it is going to be a big part of our job over the next few years, particularly the part about judicial awareness. I would say our awareness level at this point is pretty low.

_Q:Courtroom technology also has changed. Has the Committee made recommendations on the availability of courtroom technology? And what would be the major impediment to more widespread availability?

_A:Again, a tip of the hat to Judge Strand, who beat the drum for courtroom technology while he served on the IT Committee, and did it very effectively. The IT Committee oversaw the development of a package of electronic courtroom equipment and programs that is now pretty standard. I don’t want to say that we’ve finished the job, because we haven’t, but the only remaining issue is money. The questions we are dealing with are, How many electronic courtrooms should there be in each court? What infrastructure should be in every courthouse? And where do electronic courtrooms stand among the many IT projects that present competing priorities?

_Q:As the longest serving member of the Committee, how have you seen automation or the Judiciary’s automation goals, change over the years? And what are the challenges you see on the automation horizon for the Judiciary?

_A:In the six-plus years that I’ve been on the committee, the Judiciary has made astonishing progress in information technology. Judge Owen Forrester was a visionary. When he was chair of the committee, the DCN was just getting under way; the electronic courtroom was a new thing; electronic filing was a gleam in his eye; the San Antonio training program, one of his ideas, was brand new; and what we now call the stewardship programs, PACTS and HRMIS and FAS4T, had only just been commissioned.

When Judge Edward Nottingham took over the committee, he confronted a lot of the early concerns about network security; the J-Net was just getting under way; the stewardship programs were rolling out; and we were designing the program we now call CM/ECF.

Then when Judge Ed Nelson assumed the chair—and here I’d like to express the whole committee’s profound respect for the magnificent job Judge Nelson did as chair and our unhappiness that he had to resign as chair for health reasons—he presided over the launch of Lotus/Domino Notes and the actual roll-out of CM/ECF; struggled with security vs. privacy issues, and—just before he left the committee—oversaw the decision to make a Judiciary-wide infrastructure changeover to Linux servers.

Change is hard to see when we’re living with it—"What is the current to a fish?"—but if we could get out of the river and stand on the bank we would see that the IT current is very swift. In the last six or seven years, the Judiciary’s IT program has undergone a generational change.

What lies ahead? The budget is certainly a challenge in the short run, because we are facing a budget crunch. The IT Committee’s view is, don’t short us on money now. Our IT projects, and particularly CM/ECF, promise to return big savings in the future, but we need adequate funding now to get them fully implemented and well-established so that they can deliver on that promise. Security awareness and training is a challenge that is high on our list. Promoting and capturing local innovation is high on our list.

Farther out is what I call catching the next technology wave. What will it be? And how will we catch it? The IT staff in the Administrative Office has done a great job here. Its decision to switch to Linux is a good example. Wireless technologies and mobile computing are certainly two trends to watch. There has been considerable "buzz" about XML, or extensible markup language, which has quite a following in the state courts. And many people think the era of the stand-alone computer is waning, and that in the future we will have only "dumb" work stations, at our desks, with both applications and data residing elsewhere.

Even farther out in the future, a couple of "big picture" IT questions are of considerable interest, at least to me. One of them—and it’s not an issue peculiar to the Judiciary; the whole government has to think about this—is how, in 50 years, we will be able to read the records that we’re creating electronically today. Electronic archiving is a big issue. How much do we need to keep? What is the essential record, after all? What does posterity require? What will historians require? And how are we going to preserve it so, that five, six, or seven computer generations from now, we can still read it?

The other big picture question, at least in my mind, is how far we want to go with computerized remote access. Or, to put the question rhetorically, how remote do we want justice to be? Many judges are very excited at the prospect of working on-line from wherever they are, at home or traveling, and that’s all wonderful. Videocon-ferencing makes it unnecessary for lawyers to travel great distances for short hearings, and it gives prisoners access to the courts without having to bring them to the courthouse. That’s great. But if you carry all that out to its logical end, what you end up with is a system of justice in which nobody has to come to the courthouse at all. Is that what we really want? Or is the palpable, physical part of what we call the appearance of justice something that we need to maintain? Those are also rhetorical questions, of course: I am certain that the Judiciary will not want to take technology as far as it can go, just because it’s there. Information technology seems to have a life of its own, but our traditions and values will certainly constrain our adaptation to it.