Within the Case Management system (CMS) the Judicial Tools/eBench component is not a prescriptive design but is intended to guide court expectations and suggest features to software providers. The component will exchange data with basic case management components, though standards have not been established.
Judicial Tools/eBench are used on the bench and in chambers to create a digital workbench of tools, tasks and resources necessary for judges and judicial staff to resolve cases in a quick and efficient manner. Business capabilities address trial courts or appellate courts, or both.
- Provide user-configurable dashboard views for judges and judicial staff, such as My Workload and individual or bench-wide statistics
- Perform tasks and monitor tasks to be performed
- Monitor chambers task assignments and other deadlines for court action
- Monitor observance of guidelines/ time standards
- Perform ad hoc reporting
- Perform tasks and monitor tasks to be performed
- Provide an interface for a user to easily access docket information to:
- Manage court calls and scheduling of judicial events
- View case-related documents and digital evidence
- Access relevant information to conduct proceedings
- Receive case-related alerts, ticklers and notifications
- Conduct proceedings with remote parties
- Perform tasks and monitor tasks to be performed
- Create payment plans
- Provide an interface for a user to manage research and writing to:
- Generate, print and approve court-initiated or proposed orders/ opinions
- Edit documents, including cut and paste text from one document into another document
- Enter and view judicial notes and document markup
- Manage appropriate permissions for judicial notes and document markup
- Access bench book, including local rules, legal references, policies and procedures enabling bookmarking
- Perform full-text search across all documents in the current case or all cases and non-case specific documents
- Route documents to judicial or clerical staff
- View evidence and exhibits
- Access case financial information (e.g., financial obligations of defendants, child support owed)
- Aggregate multiple sources of data to provide judges and judicial staff a seamless interface into disparate systems
- Circulate and track circulating orders/ opinions among judges and central or chambers staff
- Conduct a dialogue in the judicial notes, which shall not be a part of the public record, with other panel judges concerning a draft opinion
- Manage cases across districts where judges in one district sit as visiting judges in another district