Texas Judges Corral Some Technology….
“Judges in Collin County Texas have pooled their resources to buy a domain (texasjudge.com) where they can maintain Web pages for their individual courtrooms. [via Law.com] By the links on Judge Curt Henderson's site, it looks like eleven of them have taken the plunge. Henderson's Web site, www.texasjudge.com/henderson, provides docket information in civil matters and allows lawyers to get settings in certain kinds of cases and set motions for summary judgment. [Law.com] via [Denise].
Man, I would love it if some state court judges here in New Orleans would do something like this. Actually, I have been plotting to instigate this. I have in mind a judge at the Orleans Parish Civil Court that I plan to try to introduce to Radio/weblogs. She was receptive when I explained the idea to her briefly last Saturday. It would be so easy for a judge (or her staff) to post day-to-day information about scheduling or issuance of orders (like Rory does on his site). Or let's say the judge posts something about a new rule change, or let's say she posts a list of personal preferences for motions, or whatever…
Clearly, there is useful information that trial judges could put out on a weblog that attorneys would crave. And while a normal website is okay, it really needs to be a weblog. And it needs to be XML or RSS. Why?
If it's an XML document or an RSS feed, then I can subscribe to it and have it show up in my News Aggregator. And then I can re-route that post to a category that I upstream into my lawfirm's internal web server. This is so obviously useful (except that those of you who don't use Radio have no idea what I'm talking about). And at $40 bucks a pop (per year) it eliminates the need for RFP's and the whole bureaucratic mess that would normally stifle a good idea like this.” [Ernie the Attorney]
I'm posting this mainly for the folks that listen to me rant on and on about blogs, XML, and RSS at the various presentations I've been giving. I talk about how all of this can impact libraries, but here's a real world proposal from an entirely different field – law. You can also easily shift this model into the medical field, as well. There's so much potential here, it's astounding. Just keep letting your mind stew on these ideas until the timer goes off and the ingredients have formed a tasty meal. [The Shifted Librarian]