Puerto Rico

Seventh Annual World Congress of Computer Law in San Juan, PR - Day 2

By Christian M. Frank Fas

Continuing with the series on the Seventh Annual World Congress of Computer Law held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I will offer my personal experience on the best and most interesting conferences I attended.

Day 2 of 5

@ the Puerto Rico Bar Association

So, the second day started with the introduction of Puerto Rico’s Electronic Attorney Registry, called UniRed, which is a joint venture of the Judicial Branch’s Court Administration Office (OAT in Spanish), and the Office for Notary Inspection (ODIN in Spanish).

During this conference, given by two representatives of each government dependency, including ODIN’s new Director Lcda. Lourdes I. Quintana Lloréns, the whole preparation process, development and implementation for such a large scale virtualization of attorney profile creation and court document and docket management was explained in full detail. There are three main goals of this program, the first is to enable attorneys to file documents electronically, the second is to handle court docket scheduling and manage documents, and the third is to automate and streamline official notifications.

From my point of view, and being a technological darwinist, this program will unchain me from the physical constraints of physical document filing, and may well reduce will enable me to practice law from wherever I am in the world. There is a great concern that many lawyers who still do not have the necessary computer skill to manage e-filing or electronic docket management. A few year ago, the PR Federal Circuit Court simply decided to start e-filing. You either learned, or practiced something else. The court set a deadline, and offered courses to teach those who didn’t know how to file electronically. I strongly believe that this is the way to go. You either learn, or practice something else. “I’ve been doing this the same way as far as I can remember.” is not an option in our practice.

The UNIRED conference later addressed the future plans of e-notification of notary documents and filing for certifications online through the new government web portal. The Office for Notary Inspection is diligently streamlining the necessary reciprocal communication between its offices and the community of Public Notaries in Puerto Rico. Notaries must file monthly reports and are subject to periodic inspections. An electronic system of document filing and notification will definitely speed these bidirectional communications, and keep a closer tab on such a delicate and important practice.

While in Law School, I was a strong proponent of e-filing and e-document management. Most of my colleagues said that this would never happen in my lifetime. It’s nice to know that it happened early enough in my law practice to see it materialize, and be able to benefit from it. So…here’s a great big “I TOLD YOU SO.” to all of them.

The next conference discussed the theory and practicality of running an e-government. An expert in Oracle Systems spoke of his experiences with multi-level e-government services deployment, and its negative impact over bureaucracy. Along with very organized and detailed slides, he covered all the intricacies associated with digitalizing public services, and as he pointed out, the most important of these tasks: making internal government processes and inter-departamental communication faster and more efficiently, while at the same time reducing the costs associated with document multiplicity and reprocessing. This, just this, was a wake up call to digitize most government agencies. Another very interesting topic he covered dealt with the suspicion by government employees that digitalization and automatization brought with them layoffs by simplifying the bureaucratic process. Quickly and very proficiently, he pointed out that instead of employing personnel to speed up multiple processes, these same government employees can be better dedicated to serving the public, while fewer people are needed to process the intake of processes. Fascinating…less people working, and more people serving the public might one day eliminate lines at government offices. One can only dream that this day will come.

After a lunch break, the Congress resumed with a lecture on Patents and Trademarks. This conference was like “Patents and Trademarks for Dummies”, and the speaker explained everything in simple, common language. It’s great that he did so, because most of the audience, although enthusiastic over new technologies, and speaking for myself, do not handle these matters commonly. As a solo practitioner, I seldom see Intellectual Property matters, or handle submissions to the US Patent Office, as do larger law firms who specialize in these practices.

On a side note, on this day I met Dr. Erick Iriarte Ahon, from Lima, Peru. As a representative from Alfa-Redi Foundation, he organized and moderated most of the conferences. A big “Thank you” to him for providing me with a wealth on information, and sharing his ample knowledge of domains and virtual identity on the web. You can visit his law firm’s webpage at http://www.iriartelaw.com.

Full post as published by Puerto Rico Law Blog on December 14, 2007 (boomark / email).