Computer applications and the Maltese legal professions

Abstract

Samuel Gardner is not a computer salesman. He is Chief Judge of Detroit's Recorder's Court, the city' s criminal court which handles 12,000 felony cases a year. It is hardly surprising however that he should have been the source of the above comment. Within four feet of his bench, Gardner has, like each of the court's 29 judges, a terminal which gives access to an IBM System 38 Computer. Available at the touch of a button are appointment details for any lawyer or judge which are consulted in order to avoid scheduling conflicts and unnecessary adjournments, as well as information on 72,000 cases heard during the last six years. Not only has the computer helped to dispense with a backlog, which in 1977 stood at 7 ,000 cases, but the docket management system that it provides ensures that half the court's cases are disposed of within 30 days. Defendants charged with a non capital crime can expect a trial in 60 days and those charged with crimes such as murder or rape usually go to trial within 90 days. No wonder that Gardner claims that "It would be impossible to manage the court without it". Docket management is but one facet of the application of computers by legal professions outside Malta. It falls, in fact, within the second of two main categories of application, the local development of which will form a basis for discussion in this paper: Legal Information Retrieval (LIR) and Administrative/Management Automation (AMA). Before considering the computer's utility in these two fields however, a basic question must be examined: Can a lawyer or law student afford to indulge in computer illiteracy?