At Thomson Reuters Corp., 'Justice Delayed is Justice Denied' - WashingtonExec

Steve Rubley, Thomson Reuters Corp.

The government division of Thomson Reuters has a saying: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” That ethos drives the company’s commitment to assuring continuity of access to justice before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thomson Reuters has expanded its government business over the last 6 years, with an overarching focus on using data-driven technology to help support thriving communities and safer societies. Along with initiatives such as using data and human expertise for government program fraud detection or countering human trafficking, one of the division’s main lines of business is promoting access to justice across the legal system.

According to Steve Rubley, president of that division, access to justice means more equitable, fairer and swifter justice.

The company has been developing the software tools and working toward equitable justice for years, and while Rubley says the lack of access to justice and backlog in the courts has been exacerbated by the pandemic — it’s not a new problem.

“How can we help the courts — which have a very, very rich history of tradition — with embracing new technology solutions, to both make it more efficient to hold a trial, more efficient to hold a hearing, while at the same time making it more equitable so that an individual doesn’t have to take off a week of work to participate in a hearing or a trial?” Rubley asks.

In other words, how can courts effectively hold hearings the same way WashingtonExec held its interview with Rubley — virtually, from home or work, using video conferencing tools?

“Our latest technology, our Thomson Reuters digital exhibit and evidence presentation solution powered by CaseLines, does just that,” Rubley says.

Court Systems in Need of Tech Overhaul

Many court systems have long-held traditions, and this approach has delayed justice long before the pandemic. Many jurisdictions had backlogs of hearings or trials pre-pandemic that lasted months or even years — this is where “Justice delayed is justice denied” comes into play.

And while courts have adopted efficiencies such as e-filing to address these issues, several areas of the system still required technological advancements. Sending physical reams of paper evidence or thumb drives to different parties, for instance, when digital evidence like body cam footage was exploding, was inefficient and time consuming.

The pandemic not only amplified this challenge, but caused some courts to shut down operations, Rubley said. Every state during the height of pandemic closures had to suspend in-person hearings. The numbers of outstanding cases mounted up: in October, Florida had a backlog of 990,000 cases.

In Texas, prior to the pandemic, the state held about 186 trials a week on average. However, from March to October 2020, jury trials were suspended except for in limited cases assisted by the Office of Court Administration.

In Harris County, Houston, April had a backlog of about 50,000 felony cases. In February, New York City alone had 49,000 pending criminal court cases. In June, the Federal Executive Office of Immigration Reform reported a backlog of 1.3 million cases.

“This is unsustainable,” Rubley says. And it could predominantly impact the underserved, like those fleeing domestic violence who can’t have their day in court, small business owners desperate to have their hearings, families with custody cases in limbo, evicted tenants or those charged with criminal offenses not yet convicted and awaiting a fair trial. Plus, even pre-pandemic, some people can’t afford to take a week off work to appear in court.

This is creating unequal access to justice, especially as remote hearings and virtual bench trials become the new norm.

“We think that there’s a way, and a way that has not just been proven to reduce the backlog but also moving forward to have a much more fair and much more efficient way to conduct hearings and trials using a tool like our digital exhibit and evidence presentation solution,” Rubley says.

How Do We Fix This?

The answer isn’t to throw more money at the problem, Rubley says, but to apply more current technology to work smarter and not harder.

“It’s embracing a newer way of working,” Rubley adds.

First, the courts must embrace a secure cloud, and do away with the multiyear, on-premise build. Once in the cloud, courts can quickly adopt purpose-built solutions, implement them and apply them to a problem in a matter of weeks.

“Embracing the cloud is critical,” Rubley says. Cloud-based solutions enable parties to securely and digitally upload case materials into the court so all involved in the case can see and display digital case files during an online hearing. The software can be overlayed over the virtual meeting platform used, like Zoom.

Enter the Thomson Reuters digital exhibit and evidence management solution, which allows courts to do just that.

“No more sending hundreds of thousands of pages or sending thumb drives of evidence from a body cam to different parties,” Rubley says. “Everybody can see documents and media in one browser because it’s uploaded to one secure platform.”

Imagine shifting from a world where courts had to postpone cases because not everybody had the right version of the evidence or didn’t have the evidence at all, to simply uploading the evidence from a mobile device for all to see.

“Think of the efficiency and the ability to remove backlogs, and the ability to hold cases faster, hold hearings faster,” Rubley says.

Thomson Reuters digital exhibit and evidence presentation solution was built for the courts 10 years ago to address the challenges traditional systems still cause, at an even amplified level. It is powered by CaseLines, a secure, web-based solution specifically built for case parties to digitally submit and share evidence. The solution started in the U.K. criminal courts system and has been refined over the years to work across the justice system.

The cloud-based platform allows courts to invite the parties onto the platform to view and upload all digital documents and evidence necessary. The judge can then admit materials as exhibits using digital stamps. The materials are automatically searchable, even uploaded hand-written notes and photos. It runs on a secure, Microsoft Azure-based government cloud environment and is Criminal Justice Information Services compliant.

When a hearing is held virtually over Microsoft Teams, for example, the evidence can be displayed using the cloud software-as-a-service offering. And since acquiring the CaseLines solution in August 2020, Thomson Reuters has added a pro se litigant module so those representing themselves also have access.

“You can see each other, but you can also now see the evidence,” Rubley says. “There’s no continuances because everyone gets access to the case in the cloud so there is no arguments that a party didn’t receive a document so everybody can get through the trial quickly and efficiently, and then we’re onto the next case.”

The solution can be used to hold hybrid hearings, too, if certain participants can’t be in the courtroom. In fully in-person hearings, iPads, computers or mobile devices can be used to view the evidence while in the courtroom. It’s a solution 100% built for the courts.

Putting the Right Solution to Work

So far, the CaseLines platform has been used in 25 countries (including the U.K. and Canada), by 50,000 lawyers and 3,000 judges. The English criminal courts cut the number of hearings needed for a typical trial by half using this tool.

And it’s also used in the U.S. The state of Arizona, for example, began implementing Thomson Reuters digital exhibit and evidence solution into its court systems in January. The initiative was led by Dave Byers, director of the Administrative Office of the Arizona Courts. He was worried the pandemic would cause a backlog of cases and needed an efficient solution for virtual hearings.

“He knew that this explosion of digital evidence was a problem — how do you admit evidence in different file formats, how to make it more displayable and shareable with different users?” Rubley says. “When we showed him our solution, he’s like, ‘Where have you been?’”

Thanks to Byers’ leadership and advocating on behalf of citizens, the system is now being rolled out across Arizona, starting with six counties.

The province of Ontario also adopted the solution during the pandemic to better serve its citizens, and implemented the solution in a matter of weeks to get ahead of a possible backlog. Since rolling the system out in September, Rubley says the province has had 5,500 cases go through it with 9,000 users.

“It’s making all the difference there,” Rubley says.

Breaking Down Barriers of Adoption

To overcome the traditionalism of the courts systems, Rubley says governments and jurisdictions must adopt a new way of thinking.

“It goes back to leadership,” Rubley says, “somebody saying, ‘We’ve got to do something different.’”

And with the Treasury Department recently clarifying that pandemic recovery funds can be specifically used to address and alleviate the issue of court case backlogs, state and local governments have an opportunity to put this leadership into practice.

According to Rubley, jurisdictions can start by looking at best practices of other solutions adopted by neighboring jurisdictions in the U.S., or even those countries with similar justice systems. Then, embrace the cloud.

“Open your minds up to not having to build internally and to leverage off-the-shelf that can be implemented quickly,” Rubley says.

Once governments adopt the proven technologies that make services more efficient, the citizens are the beneficiaries. Rubley calls upon the federal and state leadership to prioritize this mission.

And Thomson Reuters will continue to enhance its solution to ensure equity for all participants. Rubley says the company is looking into additional tools it can build into the solution to enable all participants to access features like Quick Check on Westlaw Edge, which uses artificial intelligence to enable users to scour legal documents.

Passion for Equitable Justice

Rubley has been in the private sector supporting the government for his entire career because he’s passionate about the mission.

Whether it’s fighting sex trafficking or using data to help with child exploitation and missing children, or partnering with the government on stopping fraud — Rubley wants to make a difference. Access to equity and justice is part of that mission, and he shares that passion with his team at Thomson Reuters.

“We have a North Star and we put partnering with our agencies above everything else,” he says. “That’s who we are. And we’re very focused on this because we know it’s going to make a difference — this particular tool is going to make a difference across the world.”

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