and other Internet sites of interest
William J. Self, II, Judge
Probate Court of Bibb County
Through a joint project of the Probate Court of Fulton County, the Georgia Courts Automation Commission and Georgia Tech Research Institute, a new software application is being pilot-tested on the World Wide Web at www.gaprobate.org. On this site, all of the Georgia Probate Court Standard Forms are available for downloading to any local computer. Once downloaded from the site, the forms may be opened in any of the widely-used word processing applications (MSWord, WordPerfect, etc.). Because a form so downloaded must be "manipulated" by the word-processing software, the Certificate required by Uniform Probate Court Rule 21.E would be necessary, and such certificate is included in the on-line forms. It is anticipated that, in the future, newly adopted forms will be "published" as required by the Rules of Court by the posting of same on the Web site.
On the site, there is a section where forms may be prepared (i.e., completed) online. The document-assembly feature allows a user to fill in blank fields with the required information. After all information is provided, the form is "assembled" by the application. The completed form may then be previewed, edited, and printed. For filings in the Fulton or DeKalb County Probate Courts, a completed form may be "saved" online, thereby storing the form on a State-owned server. The user receives back a reference number. The user may then go directly to one of those probate courts and provide the reference number to a Clerk. The Clerk will then "call up" the form from the State server, review the form for any editing or corrections needed, then print the form for the required signatures. Only Clerks in authorized courts having an assigned access ID and password may access forms saved to the State server.
At present, any probate court with Internet access may obtain an access code and ID numbers with passwords for authorized members of its staff. Because of our method of currently handling probate matters and cases, the Probate Court of Bibb County has not so registered to date. "Assembled" forms to be filed in this Court should be printed and not saved to the State server. Judge Propst is expected to write a critique of the system at the end of six months under the pilot program. I will report to the Macon Bar Association the essence of his report.
Anyone interested in seeing the "Courtroom of the Future" should visit www.courtroom21.net. I say the courtroom of the "future," but, the truth is, that there are many similar courtrooms around the nation in full operation today! One fairly close to us is the courtroom of Hon. Donald Walter, U.S. District Judge for the District of Louisiana (located, I believe, in New Orleans), which is similarly equipped. At the recent ABA Meeting in Atlanta, Judge Walter told the audience at a presentation entitled "The Visual Trial: Using Technology Effectively at Trial" that he "has not allowed paper in his courtroom for three years!" I am told by David Ratley that the new Superior Court Courtroom now under construction on the fourth floor of the Courthouse and Annex is being pre-wired and cabled so as to allow for the installation of most of these technology features in the future, as the desire and demand for the same increases here.
There are so many resources on the Internet that can be of daily use and benefit to the bench and bar. In fact, there are far too many for listing in The Docket, but Jay Powell has made reference to many in his articles. I would like to mention two that I have found very helpful to me recently. Need a definition for one of these "new" computer, technology, or Internet terms being so freely tossed about these days? Can't figure out one of the technology acronyms? Go to www.webopedia.com and type in the term you're wanting a definition for or wanting to understand better. The other site I want to mention is www.555-1212.com. Sound familiar? Yes, you can look up telephone numbers there. But, an even more useful tool is the "reverse lookup" feature. Put in any listed telephone number from anywhere in the United States and get the name and address registered to that number!