Resources on Courtroom Technology

Overview | Conference | Survey | Animations | Videoconferencing / Appeals | Videoconferencing / Criminal | Simulated Trial

Overview

The Federal Judicial Center prepared this resource page to help judges assess the admissibility of digital and other forms of electronic evidence to help Judicial Conference committees and others evaluate any need for rule and policy changes, and to inform social scientists about its work on courtroom technology. This work was not commissioned by the Judicial Conference of the United States or any of its committees.

This page contains a link to "Effective Use of Courtoom Technology: A Judge's Guide to Pretrial and Trial," a manual prepared jointly by the Center and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. The manual describes the substantive and procedural considerations that may arise when lawyers bring electronic equipment to the courtroom or use court-provided equipment for displaying or playing evidentiary exhibits or illustrative aids during trial.

The page also includes material from a research conference on courtroom technology hosted by the Center in July 2001. The goal of the conference was to identify the most pressing empirical issues related to the use of courtroom technology, and to determine how the FJC and other researchers might go about studying them.

In addition, information about several research projects the Center has undertaken pursuant to the conference is included here.

The Center maintains two resource pages on materials relating to electronic discovery. The pages collect articles, PowerPoint slide presentations, and other items of interest Unless otherwise noted, the materials have been prepared by Center staff for use in judicial and continuing legal education programs and are not subject to copyright. For more information about the Center's courtroom technology project, contact Beth Wiggins at bwiggins@fjc.gov or Meghan Dunn at mdunn@fjc.gov.