Convenor: Justice Bernard Teague, Supreme Court of Victoria 

Justice Bernard Teague introduced 5 of the conference participants who were each invited to spend a few minutes speaking to the audience about their impressions of and conclusions about the conference.

Judge Foo thanked Justice Teague for the privilege of being allowed to share his impressions of the conference. He described it as an enriching and humbling experience. As an observer it had been enriching to see how others facing similar problems use IT to resolve those problems and improve the quality of justice process. It had been a humbling because it is possible to see how much more can and should be done.

He commented that the level of interactivity and realism (virtuality) had been tremendous. Video technology, use of the internet, multimedia elements etc. had been seamlessly integrated into most of the presentations. He expressed the view that this must set standard for future conferences

He noted that there were many cutting edge IT projects in courts throughout Australia and he looked forward to collaborating with the courts here to cut down on duplication and development costs.

He thanked the AIJA, on behalf of himself and Senior Judge Richard Magnus, for the invitation to the conference and for the warm hospitality they had enjoyed during their stay.

Mr Maultby said he had been shocked to find that he was the only European delegate and thought this was a bit of an indictment! He will take positive messages back to his colleagues that there is a tremendous amount to learn in this area.

He had identified couple of key messages which he would take away, the first of which was the emphasis on remembering the ends to which we are putting technology. He said it was easy to get hung up on means and forget what we are trying to achieve and it was important to remember the point that had been made at the conference about remembering ‘ends, means and people’ as a basic philosophy. The second message had he identified was the importance to ensuring IT strategies are subservient to the business strategies of the organisation.

He identified 4 main lessons from the conference:

1. Significant advances in this part of the world are making a real difference to the way justice is administered particular in the courts. He had some initial concern that there was too much emphasis on courts and not enough on the wider process, but noted that this had been remedied by the presentation by Alan Rose from the Australian Law Reform Commission, where he flagged the important other parts of the process such as Alternative Dispute Resolution.
1. Everyone seemed to like the new developments taking place - even the prisoners in the correction centre!
1. The potential to achieve cost-savings in areas such as court hearing times.
1. The proactive role of the judiciary in a lot of these new projects and the idea that the judiciary take a leadership role.

Justice Beazley said one of the lessons she had learned in dealing with technology, was that it was useful to treat computer like a young, not very bright child, and remain cool calm and in control!

One of the things brought out for her by the conference had been the entire new world of language developed around computers, terms such as ‘heritage computer’ and even ‘email’ were not necessarily understood by all judges!

In her view those attending the conference had the benefit of stunning array of presenters of exquisite expertise and experience. She considered it to be the best structured and put together conference she had been to and she had enjoyed at a conceptual and practical level.

For her the major lessons had been:

1. The importance of looking at the need, the use and the end to which we want to put computers. It very important not to let there be imposed on you systems that seem terrific, but turn out not to fulfil your needs. The first step is to work out what the organisation needs and then identify the appropriate technology.
1. She endorsed an earlier comment by Mr Philip Argy that perhaps the time has come for an organisation like the AIJA or legal bodies generally, to create a register of available technologies so that organisations can share and learn from each other’s work.

 
Judge David Harvey, District Court of New Zealand

Judge Harvey expressed the view that the Conference had been terrific. The lesson for him had been that as soon as you think you have it all solved, you haven’t because there is going to be something around the corner. You are going to have to upgrade your system and improve it soon, and provide for that in your budgets for the future. It is a process of continual change.

He said he had found the Australian commitment to public access to the law inspiring and that was a message he would be taking back to New Zealand. He expressed the view that we should be sharing our information a lot more and it is important we put together a public register so we don’t re-invent the wheel.

Jeff expressed his appreciation to the organisations who had assisted with the technical arrangements, GVTel and Picturetel, to ICMS for providing solid infrastructure support and to the line up of convenors and speakers.

On the subject of conference statistics, he noted there had been 31 laptop-based presentations, but only 3 people ran from batteries only. The conference had identified a huge market gap for laptop stackers in presentation media! Four people did on-line presentations, two had used dial-in and two had used the internet. It may be the case that the era of the BYO laptop may be only 2-3 years and dial in access may soon be the norm at conferences.

Justice Teague expressed thanks on behalf of the AIJA to Paul Seaman, Pamela Schulz, Anne Wallace and Neil Buckley for their roles in the organisation, development and running of the conference. He paid a special tribute to Jeff Leeuwenberg for his role in developing and putting together a conference programme that had run so smoothly and successfully.