North Coast Connections

Working in courts can be amusing at times, and one source for anecdotes is jury duty. Most people take jury duty very seriously, and I try my best to ensure that courts make jury service efficient and worthwhile for those who do. Occasionally, jurors display human weaknesses that make for head shaking bemusement. OK, this isn't technology, but it's entertaining.

JUI
The first in our jurors-gone-wild episode is the case of a Texas juror who got it mostly right by showing up, going through the qualifying process, and almost making it to the courtroom where a misdemeanor driving under the influence case was ready for trial. As is usually the case, the inevitability of the trial prompted a guilty plea, but the judge noted that one juror was absent. After looking around, they found him in the judge's office displaying strange behavior that, after closer inspection, revealed he was under the influence himself (jurying under the influence?). He was promptly arrested.

$15 A DAY? ... LET IT RIDE
A recent study by a Cornell University student shows that the time it takes for a jury to deliberate is directly related to the amount of their daily pay for service. To be sure, jurors are highly underpaid and several states are taking commendable action to increase the daily stipend to better reflect today's prices. California, for instance, raised jury pay from a measly $5-a-day to $15-a-day back in 1998 ... the pay kicks in when you actually start a jury trial and your service is either one-day or one-trial, meaning if you don't get picked, you go home after the first day. In any event this study showed that a 10% increase in juror compensation increases the time juries spend deliberating by 5%.

Huh? Are they implying that for $5-a-day jurors will make short work of their deliberations, but for $15-a-day they'll stretch it out?

This reminds me of the nutjobs who run for mayor or city council because they need the stipend to live on. If I could only get myself on a jury, I'd be on easy street ...

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit - Jury's Restaurant, Chicago

Posted by Chris Crawford at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What the *&%#@ !! I look to add a new post and see that my last one didn't publish. GRRRR. I admit to being overly cautious at times, but it is only because I've been burned enough by tech hiccups that safe is better than sorry. Accordingly, I usually write my posts in an email to myself FIRST before I actually post them online. That way, in case something untoward happens, I have a back-up version (and I keep an archive version for my files).

This time, I had a very amusing story from the American Bar Association Journal about a major NY law firm that is banning BlackBerry smart phones from company meetings. As misfortune would have it, I was in the Columbus OH airport on Friday 4/11 about 15 minutes from boarding time, balancing a laptop on my rolling luggage and had to load the story directly into the system while composing on the fly. I even downloaded a cool graphic from Crackberry.com to embody the world's frustration with these annoying little gadgets.

Well forget it ... if you want to find out about the he-said-she-said comments from this "controversy," go and read them yourself. I'm too ticked off to summarize them again.

Grrrrr.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Microsoft clip-photos

Posted by Chris Crawford at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is not a tech posting. I am surrounded by technology, yet I am constantly reminded that most of the keys to success have little or nothing to do with tech.

In my work, I will often bid on a prospective project that is billed as a technology project, but in reality it isn't. Sure, courts need to acquire new automated case management systems to help them log, track and calendar cases. But what do they really need? Someone to come in, take a look at the case processing procedures, figure out what's working, change what's not working, and then write up a description of how processes are intended to be so a programmer can either build a new system or a vendor can decide whether an off-the-shelf software package will fit these needs.

And even those projects that have outward appearances of technology projects are in reality project management exercises. It is shocking to me how many public sector projects fail because they do not clearly define the problem, clearly define what needs to be done, lay out a communication plan, honestly asses the risks involved, and then lay out the set of tasks needed to accomplish what is expected. But the public sector isn't alone, several studies have shown that private and public sector projects fail at an alarming rate, and a prime reason is a lack of project management.

So as I suit up to fly to another exotic location (this time, it's Columbus, OH), I pack my Blackberry Pearl, laptop computer, MP3 player, and assorted software modeling and productivity programs. I have all the outward appearance of a tech warrior doing battle to tame the technology beast.

In reality, I am an old fashioned efficiency expert who sniffs around and organization like Hercule Perot in an Agatha Christy novel. My real tools are the spoken and written word, used to convince clients to choose among prospective solutions and to document the one that is chosen.

I could write it down in Sanskrit on paper parchment ... or I could type it into a word processing program and provide the client with electronic and hard copies of the final report.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Microsoft clipart

Posted by Chris Crawford at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)