I share the misgivings that others have expressed about the lack of uniformity between CourtFiling 1.1 and QnR, and the other standards in the 1.1 family, and on that issue I think that Tom Clarke has probably stated views that are closest to my own and in a most succinct manner.
With regard to Dallas' most recent questions, they raise a general issue about practical implementation of the standards.
Understandably, he is uneasy with Court Policy because it is subject to considerable variation, which will undoubtedly makes the task of programming more complex and difficult and as a result, expensive.
Just as there is the CMS-API, a CP-API may become necessary in order to encapsulate the logic in a component that gives standardized outputs for standardized inputs.
In other words, it may be necessary to create court policy as a web service with standard parameters being accepted and returned to EFSP's.
I think that Dallas has the greatest experience within the TC of what it takes to implement a LegalXML standard, albeit an early one and his concerns should be dealt with seriously.
I personally don't have an answer for Dallas because I find it difficult to assess programming issues in a vacuum, without a concrete task to be solved that exposes the weaknesses of a type of a priori thinking that I associate with standards creation, but I am in favor of standardized inputs and outputs for court policy as a way of creating an API.
In the meantime, I think we need to encourage implementation, even if only in a few courts are involved to begin with and with the weaknesses we acknowledge need fixing, so that we can learn from the experience of all of the participants, and improve the process for the next go-around.
However, there is another dimension to the comments of Dallas and others.
We are beginning to look at a real possibility of three standards for XML usage in court filings: one from this TC, another from the California AOC, and a third from the US Administrative Offices of the Courts.
Just as developers like Dallas should cringe at this proliferation, so lawyers may balk at sorting through EFSP's to determine which one services a court or courts that the lawyer needs to access.
It is true that large firms with mangerial or IT staff may be able to take on such a task, but in a state like Arizona, over 50% of the bar is sole practitioners, who will need to be spoon fed and offered bargain-basement or zero pricing if electronic filing will ever succeed.
This may require a uniform national infrastructure for electronic filing, and we should be prepared for the possibility that it will happen under federal aegis if we are unable to make it happen in the TC, with or without California.
I agree with Tom that the TC must move forward with what we have now, notwithstanding any doubts and concerns for the immediate future, but I think we should begin thinking of a single uniform XML standard, and how to best reach that goal.
