Ep 234: How Courts, Lawyers and Legal Tech Companies Should Handle Sealed Court Documents: A Panel Discussion

01/22/24 • 62 min

At a time when legal technology companies are making it easier to access and analyze court documents, what should – and should not – be done to protect confidential court documents that are sealed from public access?

This question came to a head last July, when a federal court in North Carolina took the drastic step of issuing a standing order that effectively banned lawyers in that district from using third-party service providers such as PacerPro, RECAP or DocketBird. That order came on the heels of a memorandum from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts that – while it didn’t outright ban the use of such service providers – it did urge courts to warn filers to be cautious about using third-party services and software.

Were these actions justified? Is there reason to be concerned about third-party providers? And what exactly is the best way to protect sealed documents?

To answer these questions, the legal tech company PacerPro brought together a panel of experts for a live program presented during the annual meeting of the National Docketing Association in Boston in October. On the panel were:

Josh Blandi, CEO and cofounder of UniCourt.
Sara Collins, vice president of product management, File & ServeXpress.
Gavin McGrane, cofounder of PacerPro.
Snorri Ogata, chief technology officer at Tech Unicorn and formerly chief information officer at the Los Angeles Superior court and, before that, at the Orange County Superior Court, two of the largest court systems in the United States..

I moderated the panel and recorded it for this podcast. Thanks to the panelists, the NDA, and PacerPro for allowing me to do that.

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
Legalweek NY 2024, Described as the “one legal event that hits all the marks for information, education, and networking”

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Were these actions justified? Is there reason to be concerned about third-party providers? And what exactly is the best way to protect sealed documents?

Josh Blandi, CEO and cofounder of UniCourt.
Sara Collins, vice president of product management, File & ServeXpress.
Gavin McGrane, cofounder of PacerPro.
Snorri Ogata, chief technology officer at Tech Unicorn and formerly chief information officer at the Los Angeles Superior court and, before that, at the Orange County Superior Court, two of the largest court systems in the United States..

I moderated the panel and recorded it for this podcast. Thanks to the panelists, the NDA, and PacerPro for allowing me to do that.

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
Legalweek NY 2024, Described as the “one legal event that hits all the marks for information, education, and networking”

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Previous Episode

Ep 233: Zen and the Art of Law Practice Management, with ZenCase’s CEO TJ Fraser and COO Olivia Mockel

In 2013, when Florida lawyer TJ Fraser set out to find a law practice management solution for his firm, he tested just about every product on the market, he says, but he could not find one that solved the problems he encountered in his day-to-day practice. So, rather than keep looking, he and his team decided to build the solution they needed for themselves.

By 2018, they had dubbed the software ZenCase, and in 2021, after continuing to develop and refine it, they migrated their first 50-plus user law firm onto the platform and officially launched it commercially to the legal market at large.

On today’s LawNext, host Bob Ambrogi is joined by Fraser, who is now the CEO of ZenCase, and Olivia Mockel, its president and COO. Mockel recently moved to ZenCase after several years in leadership roles at other practice management companies, including most recently as CEO of PCLaw | Time Matters, a joint venture between LEAP and LexisNexis.

So what makes ZenCase different from other practice management platforms and what types of law firms is it suited for? In today’s episode, we’ll hear from Fraser and Mockel about all that and more, including how they are incorporating generative AI and their plans for future development.

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
Legalweek NY 2024, Described as the “one legal event that hits all the marks for information, education, and networking”

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Next Episode

Ep 235: How the American Arbitration Association embraced Generative AI, with CEO Bridget McCormack and CIO Diana Didia

One year ago, Bridget Mary McCormack, the former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, took over the helm of the American Arbitration Association, the largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution services in the world, as its president and chief executive officer. While on the court, McCormack was a leading voice for innovating the justice system to expand access to justice, and since joining the AAA, she is credited with having “supercharged” its innovation efforts – particularly with regard to its adoption of generative AI.

Also critical to those innovation efforts has been Diana Didia, senior vice president and chief information and innovation officer at the AAA, who had helped ignite the association’s innovation efforts well before McCormack arrived and whose work not only set the stage for continued innovation but has been critical in helping the organization drive forward into embracing generative AI.

Our guests on today’s LawNext, McCormack and Didia – along with many others on their team – have been working full bore over the past year to drive further innovation at the AAA and to integrate AI into its own work and into the broader field of dispute resolution. They recently launched the AAAi Lab, a website supporting AAA users, arbitrators, in-house counsel and law firms with policy guidance, educational webinars and tools for embracing generative AI, and also ClauseBuilder, a generative AI tool for writing clear and effective ADR clauses.

When we spoke, they were preparing to present this week on the AAA’s innovation efforts and its adoption of AI as part of a panel at Legalweek in New York.

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
Legalweek NY 2024, Described as the “one legal event that hits all the marks for information, education, and networking”

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.