Organisations invite ideas for tools to support move to digitising more of litigation in courts and tribunals
The Judiciary of England and Wales has invited technologists to take part in a 24-hour ‘hackathon’ to develop new digital solutions for online courts.
It is running the exercise with the Society for Computers and Law and law technology community Legal Geek in London on 1-2 July from noon to noon.
The event is being staged to support the proposed introduction of online courts in England and Wales for civil, family, and tribunal disputes, and is aimed at providing access to justice at lower cost than the conventional court system.
Participants will be invited to design tools to support online courts, such as in helping litigants to structure their legal arguments, organise their documents and negotiate settlements without advisers.
They will also be encouraged to provide ideas on ‘open justice’ and how machine learning solutions could analyse all the data generated by the online courts.
Affordable justice
Professor Richard Susskind, president of the Society of Computers and Law, said: “Online courts are likely to be the most significant development in our court system since the nineteenth century, enabling far greater and affordable access to justice. This is a great opportunity to contribute to the design of online courts.”
HM Courts & Tribunal Service is currently pressing ahead with a plan for an online service for civil money claims, aimed at making it possible for the public to handle litigation online with turning to lawyers. A pilot of the new system is expected to begin at the end of July.
The hackathon is open to individuals and teams, with a suggestion that they include one or two coders, a designer and a creative thinker.
The organisers said prizes will awarded for the best ideas and that they are now accepting applications to take part.
Image from isaconcepcion, CC BY 2.0 through flickr
