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LIS - the Litigation Support component


The litigation support component, LIS, also been developed using Oracle, was
released in January 1992. Its first use is in the committal hearings of a
prosecution under the Commonwealth War Crimes legislation, to enable the
Magistrate to search transcript of the committal proceedings. The Court
Reporting Division of the Court Services Department provides computerised
transcript to the LIS system on a daily basis at present, although it is
envisaged that this may occur within an hour of transcription in future. The
Catscan facility of LIS performs various consistency and error checking
functions on the transcript, and extracts data from it such as exhibits
tendered and witness examination status, and then loads the transcript into
LIS ready for searching. The LIS litigation support component is examined in
more detail in Chapter 4.


JURIS and LIS as an integrated system


JURIS and LIS are integrated with the word processing facilities (now
WordPerfect), and electronic mail used across the network, so that all of
these functions are accessed through the same terminals and PCs. Users may
'hot key' between applications, so judgments, cover sheets, and other matters
may be prepared on the same terminals and PCs as are used for the JURIS
research and LIS litigation support components. Text may be 'cut and pasted'
from any of the research or litigation support databases and incorporated in
judgments or other documents being prepared. Where PCs are used to access the
system, text may now be 'cut and pasted' from JURIS, LIS etc into DOS
applications.

It is envisaged by Olsson J, and the Department, that the legal profession
will have dial-up access to the JURIS research components. Access to the LIS
litigation support application (using Oracle software) is available to the
legal profession, and dial-up access has been under consideration. It is also
envisaged that this will involve, at some future date, electronic lodgment of
Court documents. The 'gateway' through which the legal profession will obtain
access is as yet undetermined. This aspect of the South Australian system is
significant, as it means that the Department may offer any party access to the
same litigation support system and research facilities used by the Court.
Agreement has been reached with Flinders University Law School in South
Australia that it will teach use of JURIS to students.

Although the only aspect of JURIS and LIS which is of major significance for
the conduct of complex criminal trials is the litigation support component,
the system can only be understood properly in its entirety. It offers a fully
integrated computerised working environment to the Judiciary, and has the
potential to offer many of the same features to the parties to criminal
trials. The availability of a consistent user interface, and the ease of
access to research and document preparation features, should, in time,
encourage the South Australian courts to make extensive use of litigation
support facilities.

A crucial feature in the development of JURIS and LIS has been the high degree
of judicial involvement from its inception, with much of the impetus for the
system, and elements of its overall design, stemming from Olsson J of the
Supreme Court. All development and modification of JURIS and LIS is determined
by a Judicial Computing Committee chaired by Olsson J and including representatives
of the three levels of the judiciary, a Registrar, the Chief Reporter, and
Departmental representatives. The Jurisdata Input Committee has already been
mentioned.


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