Experience the art of possible for Hybrid Hearings with Unicorn Digital Courtroom 

The hybrid court is intelligent and connected, with a smart interface for judges, court clerks, attorneys, justice partners, prosecutors, and the public to access their court from wherever they are, with a unified experience. 
 
A hybrid is a mix of people being in the hearing room and in a virtual space. Virtual hearings have become a contingency plan [instead of] hybrid hearings. If there is an outbreak and a lockdown occurs, the courts can move from a hybrid hearing to a virtual hearing in a matter of minutes. 
 

#### What is a Digital Court Hallway? 
A digital court hallway simulates physical court hallway experience by providing attorneys/lawyers & their clients ability to connect via chat, video calling outside the hearing. 
 
 
#### Hybrid Courtroom - Some, many or none? 
Simulating the physical courtroom into a digital format with a custom hearing layouts and advanced conferencing features. 


#### Court’s Digital Hallway & Courtroom  
The most important discussions among the attorneys acting on the case typically take place in the hallway. It is semi-private, allowing only for partial privacy. Settlement discussions do not lend themselves to the courtroom itself. That tends to be the battleground. 


Instead, the hallway tends to be neutral ground where the attorneys can talk and probe whether there's money on the table or not. From the hallway, an attorney can go and make a quick phone call to an insurance carrier to see what their settlement posture is and whether it has changed. From the hallway, you can pop into the courtroom or invite your client to come into the hallway to speak to your client about any settlement offer made during a trial. The hallway is where the action is really taking place. However, if you're not a party to that litigation, you won't be invited to listen in and join the conversation. 


#### Quotes  


I have to say that I have changed my view about the fairness of hybrid and remote hearings… there are many good aspects…we have found that when we give people the choice… nobody is opting for a fully attended hearing. It could be the impact of delay…. If you are prepared to be remote or to be hybrid, you are likely to get an earlier listing. But it is more than that. We have found that even the most vulnerable witnesses are happy, either to come to court and attend and be supported or stay in the solicitor's offices, supported by the team in the solicitor's offices and then join remotely. I think it is a very egalitarian form of hearing in that everybody can be seen and can be heard at the same time. - Judge 


It has been easier to bring parties and attorneys together who are geographically distant from each other without the need for extensive travel or exposure to possible COVID-19. - Attorney   


Parties are given time to speak during hearings if a litigant appears in person. The process is clearer and focused I believe.  - Interpreter 


Parties appear to be less intimidated by each other and the process. - Legal adviser 


The number of ‘no-shows’ by parties has in fact decreased, as the court comes to them rather than them having to come to the court. - Judge 


I personally feel that I’m happy that I don’t have to go to court. I prefer to have it done at home. I really do. - Mother 

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Experience the art of possible for Hybrid Hearings with Unicorn Digital Courtroom 

Welcome to the Hybrid Courtroom 

Beginning in March 2020, courts transformed how they conduct business by rapidly transitioning to online platforms. Moving business entirely online required courts to train judges, court staff, prosecutors, lawyers, and litigants; establish new policies and protocols; and purchase and issue new equipment and software licenses — all in a very short period of time, and often while people were working remotely. But by the summer of 2020, courts throughout the nation were routinely conducting remote hearings, and many courts continued to conduct at least some, if not most, court hearings online well into 2021. 


In the spring of 2021, the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and Wayne State University, initiated a large-scale, national examination of remote court hearing practices in treatment court settings. The research team selected treatment courts for study because they require frequent court hearings. Over 1,350 participants in judicially led diversion programs across 27 states completed the online survey between February 2021 and July 2021. Respondents indicated that about 30 percent of the court hearings they participated in during this time were in-person only; 70 percent included both in-person and remote proceedings. The following is a summary of some of the findings; the full report is available at [https://bit.ly/3LW7AHi](link).  


#### **Interactions with the Judge**  

Court users enrolled in treatment courts were asked to rate their agreement with a series of statements about their experiences with in-person court and virtual court. The responses of those whom had only experienced virtual court were compared to the group of those respondents who had transitioned from in-person court to virtual court. Options for responses to each statement were 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (neither), 4 (agree), and 5 (strongly agree), with averages reported for each statement.  


Survey responses suggested that remote sessions may be more user-friendly than in-person sessions. Respondents who had transitioned from in-person to virtual hearings rated their comfort level for in-person hearings lower (3.88) than for virtual hearings (4.06). This difference was statistically significant. Respondents who only attended court virtually, rated their comfort participating in court sessions highest (4.37). The difference between the virtual-only participants (4.37) and the group that transitioned from in-person to virtual hearings (3.88) was also statistically significant.  


Respondents who attended both in-person court and virtual court provided similar responses about their ability to be open and honest with the judge for both settings (in person 4.24 compared to virtual 4.26). Respondents who only attended court virtually rated their ability to be open and honest during virtual hearings higher (4.41). The difference is statistically significant. 


Across most measures, court users who only experienced virtual court sessions consistently reported more positive feelings about virtual sessions than those who experienced both in-person and virtual sessions. One interpretation of the results is that the recollection of positive in-person services taints the perception of virtual services. A limitation of our study is its retrospective, cross-sectional nature; in other words, participants answered questions based on their recollections, which may or may not accurately reflect how they felt about in-person services at the time they were delivered.  
 

Overall, 45 percent of respondents indicated they would prefer to attend court 100 percent virtually; 29 percent indicated they would prefer a hybrid of in-person and remote court hearings. Just 20 percent said they’d prefer in-person sessions only.   

Respondents indicated their top three reasons for preferring remote court hearings were:  
1) they were more comfortable talking in a virtual setting 
2) they were less anxious when they attended court remotely 
3) remote hearings saved them or their loved ones time.  


Court users who preferred in-person court gave these reasons:  
1) they were more comfortable talking in person 
2) they liked seeing their peers in court 
3) they felt disconnected from the court when they participated remotely. 


Researchers also asked court staff to rate the judge’s ability to form meaningful connections during in-person and virtual sessions. In general, court professionals expressed concern about the judge’s ability to form connections virtually compared to in person: 87 percent of staff respondents rated judges’ ability to form connections with court participants as “high” when court was held in person; just 41.4 percent rated judges “high” on the same metric when court was held virtually.  


#### **Addressing Access to Justice**  

A common critique of treatment court and other diversion programs is that they are not accessible to everyone who is eligible to participate. Virtual service delivery has the potential to increase the number of individuals eligible to participate in such programs because it may mitigate obstacles that have historically been barriers to participation, such as lack of transportation to court or competing work or family obligations.  


To address the assumption that in-person attendance may be a hurdle to treatment of court users, the research team asked survey participants about attendance when court hearings were offered in person and virtually. Court professionals indicated that attendance was a little more likely to be “high” when court was held in person (75.7 percent) compared to virtual (72.8 percent). 


This is surprising given that the survey was administered at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Court users reported a variety of negative experiences during the pandemic: Nearly half (45.7 percent) had experienced increased mental health symptoms during the pandemic; 42.4 percent lost their job or income; and 11.9 percent reported loss of housing. These experiences can easily become barriers to participation in court when sessions are held in person. One court participant said, “I appreciate all the help. I don’t know how I would have attended all the classes, court appearances, and urinalysis due to gas and living in my car when I lost my apartment, if we did not go virtual.”   


Other studies have supported the idea that court attendance improves in virtual hearings. In some parts of North Dakota, appearance rates for criminal warrant hearings went from 80 percent before the pandemic to nearly 100 percent. New Jersey reported its failure-to-appear rate in criminal cases dropped from 20 percent to 0.3 percent starting the week of March 16, 2020, when courts there began to conduct virtual hearings. Michigan’s failure-to-appear rate went from 10.7 percent in April 2019 to 0.5 percent in April 2020. Though the full picture on data for attendance in virtual vs. in-person court proceedings is not yet clear, courts should continue to consider how technology access may inhibit or help participants’ ability to attend virtual proceedings. 

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Study on enabling access to justice with remote appearances 

Enabling access to justice with remote appearances   

First and foremost, the digitalization of justice systems is a monumental but ultimately very rewarding task. It has the potential for some quick wins but requires stamina and extraordinary skill to coordinate large-scale projects. Public institutions should employ state-of-the-art tools from software development, such as agile development, and place an emphasis on user-centricity and defining use cases early on. In many constellations, off-the-shelf software can enable a fast rollout, and countries have been successful in adapting existing processes to available software (not vice versa). Change management and, more specifically, setting the right, optimistic, and problem-oriented mindset, have often proven to be crucial.

![MicrosoftTeams-image.png](https://cxinternalwebsite.blob.core.windows.net/cxumediaasset/assets/Microsoft_Teams_image_44a88d2d50.png)

Finally, most large-scale advances have taken years and sometimes decades to fully materialize. As the above examples demonstrate, it pays to start digitalization initiatives and pursue them continuously. 

All of our focus countries strongly benefit from their past commitment. Some are able to punch above their weight, reaping reputation gains and attracting businesses and commercial activity. These benefits can serve as a motivation for another success factor: stakeholder buy-in, and specifically high-level political and administrative support. For digital justice reform, inclusion in a larger government-level strategy can be disproportionately helpful, and particularly high impact is often linked to bold ambition from a passionate leader at the cabinet member or supreme court level.

#### **The Future of Digital Justice**
For digital justice systems to improve worldwide, we need to take two important steps. The first is to describe the space of possible future digitalization developments so we can determine how far exactly we want to go. Then we must map out the way ahead, with a full understanding of what it will require to get there.

![MicrosoftTeams-image (1).png](https://cxinternalwebsite.blob.core.windows.net/cxumediaasset/assets/Microsoft_Teams_image_1_6e1bb076a7.png)

As the international best practices in our focus countries demonstrate, meaningful progress toward digital justice systems is possible and desirable but getting there requires resources and perseverance. Both are substantially easier to acquire and maintain when following a clear vision. 

The justice system of the future is rooted in the fundamental values and achievements of civilization, which are the components of a modern understanding of the rule of law: equality before the law, laws that are publicly disclosed, transparent, and applied proactively (never retroactively), consistent laws and processes, and an independent judiciary.

In these regards, it mirrors current justice systems, but it also improves and repairs current systems that cannot handle increasing legal complexity (see above). In the future, courts will no longer be only physical locations and centralized institutions that require personal interaction and primarily synchronous communication. 

Instead, most of the legal disputes are now initiated online, just as most conflicts are settled without a physical hearing. When required by the court, trials are held in person, but the default would be remote participation, thereby avoiding lengthy commutes and potentially intimidating situations for parties. 

As businesses—accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic—are shifting toward remote work, people have become increasingly comfortable with conducting important business from home.



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The digitalization of justice systems is a monumental but ultimately very rewarding task.

Learnings from the best in class nations in Digital Justice    

Contrary to public perception, technology has always had a significant role within courts. Supportive technology is used as a matter of routine, and includes audio-visual links (‘AVLs’), e-filing, e-discovery, real-time transcription services, and the use of devices on the bench and at the bar table. 

 

AVL technology in particular has been in use for decades, reaching ubiquity across various courts, globally.  Legislation authorises the appearance by AVL for witnesses and parties, including criminal defendants, and is a matter for the primary judge’s discretion exercised in accordance with the circumstances of a particular case. In general, a direction to use AVL requires certain minimum technological requirements to be met. In certain courts three further restrictions exist, most significantly, that AVL is not to be used if it would be unfair to any party to the proceeding. Unfairness is a broad evaluative judgment that considers if there are issues relating to credibility, documents, technology, length of cross examination or availability of alternatives. Traditionally, in a criminal context, the physical appearance of self-represented prisoners during cross-examination is favored, while in civil matters, it has been held that viva voce evidence is preferable to evidence adduced using AVL. Judges are also accorded broad discretion to sentence over AVL, based on similar considerations such as the interests of justice and the reasonable practicability of using AVL. Generally, there are four well-established precedents for using AVLs: (1) for vulnerable witnesses, such as children; (2) for other witnesses, such as those in a foreign jurisdiction, to testify from a location outside the courtroom for cost-saving or convenience; (3) to link prisoners in correctional facilities to courtrooms to conduct remands, pre-trial hearings or bail applications; and (4) to provide ancillary services such as language interpreting or expert reports. 

 

#### **Vulnerable Witnesses**    

From their first deployment through CCTV to video conferencing today, AVLs have served the essential purpose of allowing vulnerable parties such as children or intimidated witnesses to give evidence in relation to sensitive matters. Early studies found children preferred giving testimony by AVL and were ‘significantly less unhappy, more audible and more forthcoming’, or less likely to cry, report fear, or describe the trial as unfair. Later studies confirmed that remote testimony can increase the confidence of victims in criminal trials when they described intimate experiences and lead to higher quality testimony. AVLs are also preferred over the alternatives of using physical screens, intermediaries, written submissions, or pre-recorded evidence, as it preserves judges’ ability to interpret demeanour, and witnesses can also still participate in the ‘warm-up’ of an examination in chief. Several courts have acknowledged that the remote witness facility provides a measure of comfort and security to victims, being highly utilised by over 2,050 witnesses in 2018. For other disadvantaged groups, AVLs can be useful where the structure and formality of the courtroom may otherwise be alienating. Not having to enter the foreign setting of a courtroom may assist in Indigenous Australians’ effective participation in the justice system; as they are ‘seen as another type of vulnerable witness’. Similarly, legislation empowers the use of AVL for ‘a cognitively impaired person’, as some research shows persons with mental illness can more easily become stressed and aggressive in a court environment and have negative ‘experience(s) of justice’ as a result.  

#### **Remote Participation**   

AVLs have also been recognised as a way to improve accessibility and expedite the administration of justice where distance, cost or poor health is an issue. The technology is used to facilitate remote appearances both domestically and internationally. In various countries, adoption of AVLs has been especially prevalent as it helps mitigate large geographical distances. The technology is used across all courts, up to and including the High Court, where it is often used for hearings of special leave applications and single Justice hearings; to lower courts, where there is the greatest concentration of use. In the face of a wider decline in Local Court circuit services, AVLs help minimise delay for regional participants and free up court resources by omitting the need for court staff to travel. Remote witness technology also allows evidence to be taken from overseas. Prior to the advent of AVL such testimony would need to be obtained through evidence on commission, including through The Hague Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters (‘Hague Evidence Convention’).  The advent of AVLs allowed countries to skip the slow and cumbersome process of sending formal letters through diplomatic channels to achieve the Hague Evidence Convention’s requirements. It also eliminates logistical burdens such as visas, prevents forum shopping and is less environmentally harmful. While initially courts disapproved of overseas witness testimony where credit was an issue, this has become less of a concern with the availability of high quality AVL. 

 

#### **Prisoners**   

All jurisdictions have legislation allowing for an accused prisoner to appear in court by AVL, with certain matters such as adjournments, mentions, continuing remand and subsequent bail applications, even being encouraged. They are also used regularly for consultations between prisoners and defence solicitors. However, for more serious proceedings, most jurisdictions have a presumption in favour of a defendant’s physical appearance. Security was also a relevant imperative for using AVLs, as a way of mitigating risks associated with inmate movement between correction facilities or where court participants may be endangered in certain mafia-type trials. Some scholars have argued that AVLs are more humane for defendants in custody, as it avoids prison transport trips, strip searches and waiting in holding cells. In one study, many prisoners were happy to have their matter ‘over and done with quick as possible’; although others were still required to wait long hours before and after their AVL.   

 

#### **Ancillary Services**  

AVLs also facilitate access to services including interpreters and expert witnesses that might otherwise not be available on site at the court or tribunal. The role of an expert witness is to assist the court with technical and scientific expertise. Although expert evidence can be admitted into evidence by consent, it is often common, especially in criminal trials, for experts to give evidence either in-person or remotely using AVL. Because expert witnesses often lack availability, AVLs can help overcome delays arising from scheduling. However, some research has underscored that remoteness can reduce the quality of communication and lead to higher error rates with interpreting services or lower quality expert testimony. 

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AVL technology in particular has been in use for decades, reaching ubiquity across various courts, globally. 

Remote hearings in the pre-pandemic world 

Unicorn Case Manager (UCM) helps courts & justice organisations create seamless, connected court experiences through effective case management tools. The solution presents an effective hybrid court model, that ensures high productivity and optimal engagement. UCM delivers personalized, low effort experiences, while reducing case backlogs across remote hearings and in-court appearances. 

This solution addressed several challenges that modern day courts were faced with, including: 
- The inability to attend to growing case backlogs 
- The lack of modern, efficient tools for court staff
- A disconnected, siloed experience (with multiple portals and disjointed systems) 
- Decentralized teams and agencies 

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### Features: 

#### Case Scheduling 
Manage case schedules & book hearings seamlessly 

#### Court Calendar 
View the calendars of court staff and filter by people, roles and departments 

#### Case Docket 
Search, transfer, manage & track case dockets seamlessly 

#### E - filing 
Electronically file cases from the court on behalf of parties to the case 

#### Case Tracker 
Track, monitor, assign ​re-assign & update cases and their statuses 

#### Records Management 
Manage records & destination storage paths 

#### Forms Library 
Manage, search, edit and update the Forms Library based on your role and access 

#### Workflow/Rules Engine 
Define, manage, & create workflows for different departments / case types 

#### Document Management 
Instantly upload scanned documents for easy data entry and collaborate on documents 

#### Advanced Search 
Use advanced search capabilities to search data using different filters 

#### Evidence Manager 
Track, manage analyse, redact, approve/reject evidence and exhibits by cases 

#### Digital Recording 
Enable multi-channel recordings in in-courtroom, online & hybrid court case hearings 

#### Legacy Application Modernisation 
UCM can leverage your existing case management system to build modern & intelligent application interface	 

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Unicorn Case Manager (UCM) helps courts & justice organisations create seamless, connected court experiences through effective case management tools. 

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