Technology Services

Please note that these materials are provided for historical purposes only. The information presented is out of date and may be neither accurate nor useful. External hyperlinks may no longer be valid. For current court technology information, please see the new Court Technology Bulletin.

January/February 1996 Volume 8 Number 1

Back to the Future!

Vision is a key characteristic of effective judicial leadership. Vision is the ability to see where a court is, where it should be, and how it can get there. An essential element of this vision is an understanding of technology tools and how they can be applied to move a court in the right direction.

Judicial administration is challenged by the need to understand technologies that change rapidly. To act strategically, court leaders must plan for technology tools that are yet to be invented. How is it possible to know where technology is going when even the computer industry sometimes appears lost?

The answer lies in the past. The best indicators of future directions can be found by examining the trends of the last few decades. While there will be surprises, most of what will be created can be seen in what already has been developed. Look back to the past to understand the future!

A MIPS is a very crude measurement of computing power. It stands for millions of instructions per second. In 1975, an IBM mainframe computer had roughly ten MIPS of processing power and cost about $10 million, or about $1 million per MIPS. Four years later, a Digital VAX minicomputer could provide about one MIPS of processing power and be purchased for about $200,000. The first IBM PC (circa 1981) delivered one fourth of a MIPS for $3,000, about $12,000 per MIPS. Today, one MIPS costs less than $20. The power of the PC is doubling about every 18 months. This trend shows that ten years from now, billions of instructions per second will be available for pennies!

In 1996, we are paying less for a PC than we ever have, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The difference is what we receive for our money. Now we get a monitor, a diskette drive, a hard disk, a CD-ROM drive, a fax board, a modem, a sound card, and speakers for a lower price than we paid for earlier systems with none of these features. A one-gigabyte disk drive costs less today than the ten-megabyte drive cost ten years ago. Personal computers and other electronic appliances that evolve will continue to provide more features at lower prices.

Some observers believe that innovations in telecommunications will prove more significant than the rapid development of computers. Ten years ago we used analog telephone lines for data communications. It would have required more than 84 hours to transmit the contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica at speeds practical at that time. Five years ago, using digital technology, we could move the same amount of information over a network in under 13 hours. Now, using fiber-optics, we can move the same amount of information in under five seconds! As telecommunications speed equals or surpasses improvements in computer systems, time and distance will disappear as barriers to work and communication.

The Internet began in the 1960s as an experiment in inter-computer communications. By 1981, over 200 computers were connected to this network of computer networks. By 1989, the number had increased to 130,000. In 1992, we crossed the one million mark. By the end of 1995, we exceeded seven million connections, and a 60 percent increase is expected in 1996! At this rate, the Internet will have matched the ubiquitous telephone by the year 2004 -- it will be in every home and office. The lines between computer, telephone, and television will blur and eventually disappear.

The main trend we have seen in court technology is integration. Case management, office automation, court records, testimony, evidence, and legal information systems that developed independent of one another are now being integrated in the personal computer.

Computer systems of the future will hold more than data and text. They will store images, graphics, animation, audio, and video. They will be true multimedia systems that will contain everything we want to know about a case and make it available instantly, anywhere in the world. They will be fully integrated with similar systems in other organizations.

What will the case management system of the future look like? Imagine an electronic register of actions that lists all documents filed and every court event. A simple mouse click displays an image of any document. Another mouse click opens a video window and replays a court event, complete with a searchable transcript. Electronic evidence also is available.

The future offers tremendous opportunity for those who are willing to develop their vision and apply it to judicial operations. Courts exist to administer justice, not to run computer systems or create unique web sites. But the court leader who has a realistic vision of technology will function more effectively and find greater satisfaction in working in the judicial branch. The key to developing and maintaining this vision of the future is to learn from what's happened in the past and pay attention to what is happening today.

Lawrence P. Webster is the executive director of Court Technology Programs of the National Center for State Courts. He can be reached at 800-616-6164 or via e-mail at lwebster@ncsc.dni.us.