about the center for legal and court technology
Introduction | Law School Activities | Conferences | Professional Training and Consulting | Fellowships | Student Participation | Other School Support
Introduction
William & Mary Law School is the home of the Center for Legal and Court Technology (CLCT) and the Courtroom 21 Project. Begun as the Courtroom 21 Project in 1993, CLCT is a joint project of William & Mary Law School and the National Center for State Courts. CLCT’s primary external mission is “To improve the world’s legal systems through the appropriate use of technology.” To accomplish this, CLCT conducts frequent legal technology demonstrations and discussions each week, hosting jurists, lawyers, law faculty, court administrators, technologists, architects and others from throughout the world. CLCT is the world center for empirical and legal research on courtroom technology and is heavily involved in judicial and lawyer education and training. CLCT also provides technology augmented courtroom design consulting services. CLCT is best known for the Law School’s McGlothlin Courtroom, the hub of the Courtroom 21 Project, which is the world’s most technologically advanced trial and appellate courtroom.
CLCT currently has affiliated overseas projects in the United Kingdom and in Australia. CLCT also supports the Courtroom 21 Court Affiliates, a growing number of state, federal, and foreign courts that wish to use courtroom technology as successfully as possible. These courts meet together at the annual Court Affiliates' Conference to address legal, administrative, and technological concerns.
CLCT also houses the Courtroom Information Project website. This website is a rapidly growing visual database of pictures of the nation’s courtrooms with accompanying legal technology information.
The United States Congress has appropriated via earmark approximately $500,000 annually for the support of CLCT in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
Within the Law School, CLCT is best known for its many internal activities.
Law School Activities
CLCT provides legal technology support to Law School activities. It is a key part of Legal Skills and Trial Advocacy. All first year Legal Skills students e-file their simulated cases using access to the federal court system provided by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, a Courtroom 21 Court Affiliate. In their second year, Legal Skills students receive mandatory hands-on courtroom technology instruction, and Legal Skills and Trial Advocacy students are required to use the McGlothlin Courtroom’s technology during the trial of their practice cases. CLCT’s Court Record Manager ensures that trial transcripts or recordings are available for appellate purposes. CLCT also supports specialized courses such as Electronic Discovery and Data Seizures, the Privacy in a Technological Age Seminar, Technology Augmented Trial Advocacy, and the Legal Technology Seminar.
Technology Augmented Trial Advocacy is a unique trial practice course that is open to second-year and third-year students. Students in the course learn both traditional methods of trying cases as well as today’s high-technology options. At the end of the course, students try a high-technology jury trial presided over by a state or federal judge. The spring 2002 course included a high-technology Army court-martial presided over by the United States Army’s Chief Trial Judge that likely was the most technologically sophisticated court-martial in world history. A number of 2003 course students participated in a high-technology commercial arbitration. In addition to the normal end-of-the year trials, one 2004 student participated in the innovative Courtroom 21 Laboratory Trial. In 2006, two members of the class tried the 2006 Laboratory Trial, a state-of-the art assistive technology trial.
The Law School is especially well known for its Legal Technology Seminar. Open to second-year and third-year students, the Seminar explores the effect of legal technology on lawyers, law firms, the courts, and government agencies. Supported by the entire CLCT staff and all of its technology, the Seminar also includes the world-famous Laboratory Trial, a one-day experimental case tried each April. Often conducted with assistance from the Federal Judicial Center and presided over by a visiting federal judge, the “Lab Trial” can involve a large number of experiments conducted to determine the impact of technology on participants in the trial process as well as on justice itself.
The 2001 trial tested critical evidence technologies in a simulated terrorism prosecution that included testimony from three continents. Then, in 2002's laboratory trial, with the assistance of scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara and the Federal Judicial Center, Courtroom 21 pioneered the courtroom use of holographic evidence and immersive virtual reality.
The 2003 case was an unusually thorough experimental prosecution, which, with the support of the Department of Justice’s Counter Terrorism Section, involved the prosecution of a United States citizen for attempting to help fund an al Qaeda strike in the United States. The case included the world’s first known use of concurrent judicial proceedings from different nations. Seeking to obtain potentially privileged testimony from a witness abroad, the prosecutor argued her case not only to the presiding judge in Williamsburg, the Honorable James Spencer, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, but also via videoconferencing concurrently to judges in Queensland, Australia, and Leeds in the United Kingdom.
The 2004 trial was a proof-of-concept high-technology alternative dispute resolution (ADR). The ADR dealt with a multi-party construction contract between the fictional Global Hospitality Enterprises and various international companies to build a new luxury hotel in Baghdad. Heightened security concerns and supplier difficulties imperiled the construction, which resulted in a mediation and arbitration between the parties. The mediation involved participants from Australia, the United Kingdom, and Norway appearing remotely via videoconferencing in Williamsburg, Virginia where Global's representatives were. The arbitration involved three arbitrators of whom one appeared remotely. Documents were available to all participants via the Internet.
The 2005 Laboratory Trial, In re Blossom & Blossom involved a ground-breaking international parental child abduction case in which a mother took her daughter to Mexico and refused to return the child to Virginia, where the father and other child were living. With the Hague Convention inapplicable, courts in both Mexico and the United States had jurisdiction over the custody issues but neither court had power to resolve the case. On April 2, 2005, using the new Courtroom 21 Protocol, "A Request for Interjurisdictional Cooperation," courts in both Williamsburg and in Monterrey, Mexico convened independently but took evidence from each other via modern technology. At the close of the cases, the judges conferred and reached a joint result applicable in both nations. Representatives from the State Department, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the Federal Judicial Center attended and later joined staff to discuss the future implications of this new procedure.
In 2006, United States v. Horton was a ground-breaking assistive technology Americans With Disabilities Act trial in which many of the key participants had vision, hearing, and/or mobility limitations. The trial judge, for example, was nearly blind due to macular degeneration. That trial led to the creation of an international assistive technology information service as part of CLCT.
Conferences
CLCT conducts an increasing number of conferences each year. In February 2004, for example, CLCT hosted the International Conference on the Legal & Policy Implications of Courtroom Technology. Guests and speakers arrived from around the world to either physically or remotely share the extent of courtroom technology in their part of the globe and discuss how this technology contributes to and detracts from the fairness of dispute resolution. Articles written by conference speakers were published in the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
In addition to the annual "Court Affiliates Conference," this academic year CLCT likely will sponsor the fourth "Courthouse Construction and Renovation Conference," and the fifth "CLCT Privacy and Public Access To Electronically Available Court Records Conference" (with the assistance of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts). CLCT continues to expand its professional training courses.
Professional Training and Consulting
CLCT provides high-technology trial practice instruction to lawyers by program and by special arrangement. CLCT is especially known for its Certification Course in Basic Technology-Enhanced Trial Practice. Working with the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, for example, CLCT personnel trained members of the Oregon federal bar at a continuing legal education (CLE) program offered in Portland and Eugene in June 2003. CLCT also offered training on-site to members of the Fairfax, Virginia Bar in 2005, and will return to Oregon in 2006. CLCT offers CLE courses throughout the year at the Law School and personnel are available to travel for on-site CLE programs. CLCT offers its Legal Technologist Certification in Williamsburg multiple times each year.
The Courtroom 21 Project provides design and consulting assistance to courts, government agencies, law schools, and law firms in a growing number of areas. In the fall of 2003, CLCT was appointed as Executive Agent to assist the Fairfax Circuit Court by determining the feasibility of the use of remote testimony in Commonwealth v. Malvo, one of the two “Washington sniper cases.”
Fellowships
CLCT has a small but growing number of student fellowships. CLCT Fellows receive an annual stipend and play an especially important role in CLCT, often filling key research, administrative, and technology positions. In 2005, CLCT awarded its first Roger Strand Post-Graduate Fellowship in Legal Technology to Heidi Simon.
Student Participation
Members of the William & Mary Law School student body play an important role in the daily operations of CLCT. In addition to CLCT Fellows and the Graduate Fellows assigned to CLCT, many students each year volunteer their assistance to CLCT. In most cases, volunteer help is needed only on an exceptional basis. However, in some areas, especially international support and computer-related matters, CLCT relies especially on student colleagues. Students interested in working with CLCT should contact Nancy Archibald, Associate Director for Operations and Administration, nvarch@wm.edu or 221-2494. A technology background is not necessary. This year, CLCT is highly interested in students with backgrounds in management, marketing, or technology.
Other School Support
With the close of the 2005-2006 academic year, CLCT took over responsibility for operation and support of the Law School’s instructional audio-video technology. Many of the 2006-2007 Graduate Fellows assigned to CLCT will be working in this area.