“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
Malcolm X
Last week, the Future Trials Working Group of the New York Commission to Reimagine the Future of Courts rendered a comprehensive Report. And it’s chock full of sound analysis and imagining about where Courts, at least in New York, may be going. The Report identifies the critical issues and challenges evolving technology poses for our court systems. (A tip of the hat to my friend Matt Cairns for sending me the Report
The Commission itself was formed in June 2020 by New York Chief Judge Janet DiFore. It mission was to make recommendations to improve the quality and delivery of legal services in New York. The Future Trials Group was one of 6 groups established by the Commission.
The Group’s charge: evaluate how evolving technologies and other developments might be applied to improve future trial practice in New York. And, relatedly, to identify threats posed by such technologies, and make recommendations for the future. The chair of the Group was Richard Edlin of the Greenburg Traurig firm.
It would be naive to expect that the next 20 years will not present their own extraordinary changes and challenges to trial practice.
The Report is one of the first attempts by a court system to critically evaluate and prepare for a very different future than the status quo: “it would be naive to expect that the next 20 years will not present their own extraordinary changes and challenges to trial practice.”
Before I get to the meat of the Report, here are some takeaways and why the Report is essential, not just for the judiciary, but also for litigators:
The Report recognizes the fundamental ways technology and innovation will change our court