Avenu Insights & Analytics, the leading provider of compliance, revenue recovery and public administration solutions for state and local governments, has introduced Avenu | Jury, an innovative solution that streamlines the way governments handle their jury processes. The application simplifies and automates the entire jury management process, from randomized selection to trial participation and payment.
Avenu | Jury’s advanced platform bridges the gap between the Courts and citizens, delivering a modern and convenient experience that meets the needs of today’s tech-savvy constituents. It’s advanced accounting software automatically calculates all juror payments and expenses by configuring custom rules specific to each jurisdiction. It also simplifies case creation, randomizes panel selection, and provides mobile functionality, making it easier to manage jury pools. Self-service kiosks allow jurors to check-in, enter information, produce payments, and print proof of attendance.
The solution’s simplified architecture allows them to seamlessly integrate the solution into their existing infrastructure. Integration with third-party applications that include print and mail services, integrated voice response, jury display systems, juror payment cards, functional and technical training and consulting, software installation, data conversion and data merge, maintenance and support, provides a comprehensive solution for jury management. In addition, Avenu | Jury is ADA compliant and offers multi-lingual functionality for public-facing components, ensuring that all constituents feel comfortable and included in their community.
“Legacy systems are inefficient and often result in lower juror turnouts and delayed processes,” said Paul Colangelo, CEO of Avenu Insights & Analytics. “With Avenu | Jury, we are proud to offer an Industry leading solution that simplifies the entire jury management process, automating it at every stage. We are confident that Avenu | Jury will transform the way courts manage their juror pools, improving the relationship between the court and its constituents.”
About Avenu Insights & Analytics:
Over 3,500 state and local governments have partnered with Avenu to drive positive results for their communities through software administration and revenue enhancement solutions. Avenu’s comprehensive software solutions digitally transform government by modernizing processes, providing online access to records, and reducing costs. Avenu also provides a robust ecosystem of revenue management services that identify and recover untapped revenue. State and local governments work closely with Avenu to increase revenue without raising taxes, streamline internal operations, and improve services by enhancing connectivity for constituents. Avenu is a portfolio company of Mill Point Capital.
To learn more, visit https://www.avenuinsights.com/
About Mill Point Capital:
Mill Point Capital LLC is a private equity firm focused on control investments in lower-middle market companies across the business services, technology and industrials sectors in North America. Mill Point’s experienced team of investors and Executive Partners seek portfolio company value enhancement through rigorous implementation of transformative strategic initiatives and operational improvements. Mill Point is based in New York, NY.
For more information, please visit https://www.millpoint.com/
By Keith Ellery, Avenu Justice Solutions Leader
As we enter the second year of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s clearer than ever that COVID-19 will have long-lasting effects on our way of life. But the changes wrought by COVID-19 have proven especially challenging for America’s court system.
Across the country, COVID-19 is delaying jury trials and impeding access to justice. In some cases, positive COVID diagnoses have led to mistrials, further delaying and complicating the justice process. Between social distancing regulations, safety concerns and a rapid shift to remote work for government employees, courts are struggling to maintain the normal operating procedures that allow juries to convene.
But as the old adage goes, justice delayed is justice denied. Approximately 74% of roughly 631,000 people held in U.S. jails are still awaiting trial and conviction. Without a solution to the challenges posed by COVID-19, our court system can’t deliver justice to these and many other people.
Fortunately, digital court technology can help.
2020 was no stranger to digital technology. We’ve all experienced the widespread and rapid shift to video conferencing technology in our workplaces, churches and even homes. Digital and online services and portals have provided a lifeline for workplaces, organizations and families confronting disruption by COVID-19. And we can bring the same technological innovation to our justice system.
Digital court technology can range from an online system for managing juries to electronic filing capabilities and cloud-based document databases. All of these technologies have been around long before COVID-19, but they hadn’t yet found widespread Governments simply had other budgeting priorities than digitalizing the courts.
But COVID-19 has changed those priorities. Faced with widespread delays and disruptions of justice, courts must now view digitalization as an imperative, not an option. If governments want to overcome COVID-19’s impact on the court, they’ll have to digitize now.
Take jury selection and management as a case in point. One of the biggest hurdles facing local courts today is how difficult it is to assemble jurors in a socially distanced and safe way. In the past, you’d have 300 or so people show up at a time and gather in a small space to wait to be used during jury service. With COVID-19, most courts simply don’t have the physical capacity to provide socially distanced jury meetings for all these people.
As a result, people are simply refusing jury duty summons out of concerns for their personal safety. To compensate, some court officials are even turning to the extremely costly measure of leasing convention center space to meet social distancing requirements. But neither of these outcomes delivers a safe, streamlined and cost-efficient jury management solution.
Things look different with an online jury management portal. At Avenu, we just launched the Clearview Justice Portal that has a number of plug-ins, including a juror attendance plug-in. The portal empowers courts to communicate with and guide jurors through the process of their jury service in a completely contactless way. Jurors can be checked in and pre-assembled for jury service but stay socially distanced in their vehicles. A contactless jury management system like this could easily and quickly become part of the new normal as we continue to battle the coronavirus.
But digital jury management is just one example among many. The larger point is that the technologies are out there to digitize the court in almost every aspect, and a digitized court system circumnavigates the roadblocks and the dangers posed by COVID-19. We may even start to see virtual jury trials in the very near future, something previously unimaginable.
With digital technology solutions, we can prepare our court system for whatever disruptions the future of the coronavirus pandemic throws at us. As we face both new spikes in coronavirus cases heading into the new year and the prospect of a coronavirus mutation, making those preparations now could mean the difference between justice delivered or justice delayed and denied.
How the Norfolk Circuit Court Increased its Jury Response Rate from 36% to 80%.
Low jury response rates can be a drag on court operations and the administration of justice: cancelled trials; wasted time and money; frustrated judges, lawyers, parties, and witnesses.
These low jury response rates also punish the members of the public who do show up to meet their civic responsibilities. These responsible citizens often serve more frequently because of the citizens who simply shirk from their civic duties.
The citizens who do respond to a jury duty summons are not always reflective of the population leading to jury pools that do not accurately represent the demographics of the community.
The Circuit Court of the City of Norfolk, Virginia faced all of these problems in 2015. And they were not getting any better.
Clerk of Court George Schaefer summarizes the Court’s experience in improving the jury response rate in this way: “We’ve improved our jury response rate from a low of 36% to around 80%. Are we where we want to be? No, not yet. But through a lot of concerted effort and a software program that allows us to do what we need to do, we’re so much better off than we used to be. We’re quite pleased.”
Norfolk, Virginia