XML Court Interface

Date: Jun. 5, 2000
Link: http://www.nmcourt.fed.us/xci/xcihome.htm
Source Author or Organization: Rich Himes, Robert M. March, Clerk of Court, US District Court, District of New Mexico, LegalXML

XCI design is based on the experience that proprietary, closed systems are expensive (for the litigants, attorneys, and/or the courts) and lock courts into technologies that are difficult to enhance as better alternatives become available. Without a standard, different jurisdictions will have vastly different approaches, and attorneys and law firms will be far more reluctant to train on multiple electronic filing systems. XML Court Interface (XCI) now provides a standards-based alternative for court filing systems that provide an "electronic front counter" processing bulk filings for the court.

XCI was developed by the people at the (US) District of New Mexico Court on some kind of a federal grant to develop a working demonstration. Apparently the New Mexico District federal court is well known as a pioneer and early adopter of interent-based solutions in the legal community. (And of state of the art hardware solutions, also.)

The project has been handed over to a nonprofit for developing open, non-proprietary technical standards for legal documents called LegalXML (legalxml.org).