Courtroom drama

Nortel Government Solutions invested $6 million over three years to develop its Digital Data Management System.

And then gave it for free to the National Judicial College in Reno.

The technology captures each day's proceedings in video and audio so judges and attorneys can review the day's proceedings in real time.

But the capture system also may translate into a longer workday for attorneys, who can review the entire day in court all over again that night.

"Attorneys already can spend five, six, seven hours prepping for the next day," says Leigh Goddard, attorney with McDonald Carano Wilson. "They can review typed transcripts provided by the court reporter."

But when video capture comes into wide use, she says it is possible that it may impact cases sent to appeals court, because judges won't be limited to written transcripts from the lower court trial.

While lower court trials are argued on facts, cases that go to appeal are often argued on point of law was it a fair trial? And, if judges could consider mitigating factors such facial expressions and tone of voice, might that make a difference?

At Reno's National Judicial College, says Joseph Sawyer, manager of distance learning technology, Nortel techs installed the new software on a variety of servers; it's accessed via the Internet. (The system also includes hardware and software donated by ExhibitOne, MediaEdge and Levare.)

Sawyer says the college already exposed judges to audio video recording systems that allow a court to burn a day's worth of proceedings to a CD-ROM drive. Judges also become familiar with video cameras that automatically zoom in to capture testimony from whoever is speaking.

Judge Paul Bollwerk, on the National Judicial College teaching staff, was instrumental in securing the donation. He was former chief judge for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The software originally was designed for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's high-waste depository hearings on Yucca Mountain. But Nortel Government Solutions, a U.S. subsidiary of Toronto-based Nortel, will now market the program as Digital Courtroom System.

Nortel thinks the donation is a good way to market its software.

"The college trains 3,000 judges every year," says Paul Gwaltney, program manager at Nortel. "They'll take the knowledge nationwide."

The initial system's development cost of $6 million included 35 servers, 100 workstations and audio visual systems for two courtrooms. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission installed the first in Rockville, Md., followed in early 2006 by a second in Las Vegas.

It replaces dog-eared documents with an electronic environment that's time-synchronized to a text transcript, says Gwaltney. It can handle documents, workflow, video transcripts, discovery items, judges' orders, and pieces of evidence.

It can search millions of documents in a fraction of the time it would take legal clerks.

It will also provide secure storage and electronic access to millions of pages of evidence and thousands of hours of testimony.

"Trial lawyers must become comfortable with technology," says Goddard. But already, she adds, documents are scanned into legal databases that provide word search capability. And attorneys can read testimony displayed on a video screen even as it's typed by the court reporter.