Summit County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division Receives $9,500 Technology Grant from the Ohio Supreme Court
Summit County, OH – Monday, July 8, 2024– The Summit County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division is excited to announce being awarded $9,500 in Grant Funding from the Ohio Supreme Court Technology Grant.
“AI transcription yields multiple benefits,” stated Administrative Judge Katarina Cook, “it relieves the workload on court staff, enables judicial officers to utilize draft transcription reducing overall time to disposition, and generates cost savings passed on to Summit County citizens.”
Summit County Domestic Relations Court’s Project is just one of thirty-five projects selected statewide. The Ohio Supreme Court awarded a total of 2.89 million dollars last month to 25 counties. Since 2015, when the program began, the Supreme Court has awarded 42.4 million dollars to local courts who seek to enhance their public works via technology that modernizes, creates transparency and increases efficiencies.
The Summit County Project will utilize Artificial Intelligence to decrease the time and human resources needed to produce transcripts of court hearings, both rough-draft and certified. Doing so will have two effects: (1) Create a substantial savings for the Court and parties; (2) Faster production of transcripts decreasing the time needed for judicial officers to rule on cases, allowing litigants to receive accelerated resolution to their conflicts.
In 2017, the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia found that it took approximately 3.55 hours of out-of-court transcription for a court reporter to transcribe 1 hour of in court proceedings. This number is comparable to the time taken by Summit County Domestic Relations Court personnel to transcribe hearings from audio recordings. Courtsmart Al, the system utilized by the Court, is processing rough drafts transcripts from recordings at 20% of hearing time (a one-hour hearing would take Courtsmart AI approximately 12 minutes to generate a rough draft).
While these changes benefit everyone involved in the justice process, self-represented litigants receive the greatest benefit. Pro Se litigants often don’t understand the judicial process and why it takes so long to issue decisions. The Court can reduce the time needed for judicial officers to prepare decisions on sensitive family matters when the use of AI Transcription is deployed.
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For additional comments, questions or interviews please contact:
Paul M. Henry
phenry@drcourt.org
330-643-7845