Third Quarter 06 Report

[John Messing <jmessing@law-on-line.com>]

LegalXML-OASIS Member Section Report for third quarter of 2006

I. Overview

The Member Section continues to gain membership and revenues, while
cutting non-consulting expenditures. The ECF TC and eContracts TC
continue to benefit from the allocation of budgetary funds for
consulting. Projected budgetary funds for next year indicate that there
may be approximately $40,000 for TC consulting and related TC efforts.

As of the date of this consolidated report, two of the TC's, ECF and
ENotary, had successfully adopted the Royalty Free on Limited Terms IPR
mode. This adoption reportedly may have caused one or more long term
members who are holders of patented IPR to cut back or abandon
participation in the adopting TC's.

The Integrated Justice TC is beginning to look at new matters to address
after a period of relative inactivity.

A face-to-face meeting of the Steering Committee is planned for Las
Vegas in mid-December 2006.

I am happy to report that on balance the technical/financial picture
remains bright. 

Individual TC reports follow.

II. LegalXML-OASIS Electronic Court Filing Technical Committee

The committee held a face-to-face meeting in New York, New York on
September 21 and 22 and held telephone conference calls in July and
August.

It approved the ECF 3.01 specification as a committee draft,
incorporating the terminology used by the OASIS Service Oriented
Architecture Technical Committee, and making a few minor changes to the
element definitions.  The schemas and messaging profiles have been
conformed to the changes.

It approved the charters of the Court Documents and Compliance
Subcommittees and initiated creation of a fourth active subcommittee –
an Outreach Subcommittee.

It approved an IP mode transition request asking the OASIS management to
commence an IPR Transition Approval Ballot to convert to the Royalty
Free on Limited Terms IPR mode.  Mary McRae posted the Transition
Approval Ballot on October 3, 2006.  At the time of this report, four
of ten eligible voters had cast their ballots.  All approved the
proposed transition.  When the IPR transition is complete, the
Technical Committee will revisit its charter.

The meeting on September 21 in New York City was an outreach session
during which TC members met with representatives of a number of
entities implementing the ECF 3.0 specification:

-	The Office of the Clerk of Court, Maricopa County, Arizona (the state
Commission on Technology has adopted ECF 3.0, as implemented in
Maricopa County, as the required technical standard for eFiling
implementations in that state).

-	The Georgia Administrative Office of the Courts, in three pilot
counties, working with the state Office of Child Support Services

-	The New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts (assisted by IBM)

-	Lexis Nexis File and Serve

-	Tybera

A committee in Florida has recommended that ECF 3.0 become the official
standard for eFiling in that state.  The state was not able to send
representatives to the meeting.

The Unified Court System of New York State and the Office of the Mayor
of New York City also sent representatives to the outreach session.

The outreach session was highly successful – confirming the soundness of
the ECF 3.0 specification and identifying a number of needed and
desirable enhancements.

The LegalXML Member Section Steering Committee provided $8,000 to the
technical committee to provide technical support to these implementers.
 To date, none of the implementing jurisdictions have called upon us to
provide such support.  Maricopa County contracted directly with MTG
Management Consultants, LLC, our technical support provider, for its
assistance.

Earlier this year, Tom Carlson completed a review of all ECF 3.0 data
element definitions, comparing them to the current GJXDM definitions
and definitions created by National Center for State Courts user groups
creating other court-related IEPDs.  The Technical Committee completed
its review of one of Carlson’s lists and has established a small
working group to resolve the second such list.  The TC’s recommended
definitions will be placed before the XML Structure Task Force for
incorporation into GJXDM.

Work continues on the following:
	
Drafting of a technical introduction to the specification for IT
professionals, to be guided by the new Outreach Subcommittee.

Development of proposals to address all of the enhancements to ECF 3.0
identified during the September 21, 2006 outreach session in New York
City.  The Technical Committee plans to approve ECF 3.1 incorporating
many of these changes early in 2007.

Enhancement of ECF 3.0 for appellate filings, including those for
administrative applications such as bar admissions, bar and judicial
discipline, and court rules.  The committee will prepare a use case for
the record on appeal when documents are maintained in electronic form in
the trial court.  The committee is obtaining appellate data elements
from the federal courts, the Arizona, Florida and Georgia Supreme
Courts and the Arizona Court of Appeals.  

Exploration of avenues to involve administrative agencies in testing or
enhancing ECF 3.0.  The current avenue being explored is the various
federal agencies receiving immigration documents for filing.

Enhancement of ECF 3.0 to include other case types (lower court appeals,
civil traffic, parking, and local ordinance violations) and non-case
information.  The Property Records Information Association has joined
the TC and will provide valuable assistance with the latter issue.

Monitoring the progress of GJXDM and NIEM, with the expectation that the
Technical Committee will issue an ECF 4.0 specification early in 2008.

The TC has three active subcommittees:

	The Conformance Subcommittee

The Court Document Subcommittee

	The Signature Subcommittee
 
During the fourth quarter of 2006, the TC will 

-	continue the work of the Court Documents and Signatures Subcommittees,
commence the work of the Conformance Subcommittee, and approve the
charter for and commence the work of the Outreach Subcommittee
-	commence work on all of the issues identified during the September 21
outreach meeting
-	hold a face to face meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on December 13 and
14 to act on proposals to modify the ECF 3.01 specification, including
the list of definitions identified by Tom Carlson as “Needs Resolution”
-	complete formal action on its IPR transition and approve other changes
to the TC charter


Issue for OASIS management

The ECF Technical Committee has a number of inactive subcommittees and
has approved the creation of one new subcommittee.  

We ask OASIS staff to add a new Conformance Subcommittee, chaired by Tom
Clarke.  

We ask OASIS staff to remove the following subcommittees, which are no
longer active, from the ECFTC webpage and archive their deliberations:

-	LegalXML Court Filing Blue Drafting Subcommittee
-	LegalXML Court Filing Certification Subcommittee
-	LegalXML Court Filing eFiling Process Models Subcommittee
-	LegalXML Court Filing Layered Interoperability Subcommittee
-	LegalXML Court Filing Requirements Subcommittee
-	LegalXML Court Filing Repository Subcommittee

Submitted by Tom Clarke and John Greacen, Co-Chairs

III. Oasis LegalXML eNotarization Technical Committee  

1. Proposed work and status of initiatives

A. Electronic signature profiles - adopt enotary standards for server
signing, server timestamping, and other methods of signing electronic
notarizations. 
STATUS: The TC has reviewed the electronic signature profiles
incorporated in the Electronic Court Filing (ECF) 3.0 XML specification
and has tentatively accepted these or substantially similar signature
profiles for electronic notarizations. 
The TC has identified a need to gain more detailed technical knowledge
of existing electronic signature and digital signature technical
standards and methods that could be used for electronic notarizations. 
In this regard, the TC will consider engaging a technical consultant to
assist with drafting a proposed enotarization XML standard.

B. Identify structural patterns of notarial documents such as
acknowledgments and certificates. 
STATUS: The TC has continued to review the general structural patterns
of notarial documents and has identified data elements common to all
notarial certificates or acknowledgments. The TC expects that these
data elements will be incorporated in an XML enotarization standard as
XML elements and/or attributes. This review is ongoing.

C. Establish a dictionary to define semantics for XML elements and
attributes used for electronic notarizations. 

STATUS: The TC continued to develop an initial list of definitions of
notarial terms that can be refined for use as part of an XML standard
for electronic notarizations. Additionally, the TC has reviewed and
compared a spreadsheet of “data elements” for e-notarizations drawn
from three leading notarization element vocabularies potentially useful
for XML e-notarizations. The elements were based on information from the
Pa Assn of Notaries & US Notary Assn, the MISMO SMART Document 1.02 DTD
used in the mortgage industry, and the National Information Exchange
Model Universal 0.2 XML schema being developed through the U.S. Depts.
of Justice and Homeland Security. The TC will continue to identify
potential elements and existing XML vocabularies for e-notarizations. 

D. Develop use cases describing various notarial acts. 

STATUS: The TC has focused on developing use cases for various common
notarial acts, such as acknowledgments, for which an XML standard could
be useful. Background information regarding notarial acts was reviewed
and an appropriate format to follow in creating use cases was
identified. An initial draft covering two use cases for e-notarizations
was prepared and reviewed. The TC anticipates that the use cases will
provide the basis for identifying and clarifying technical requirements
for an XML standard for e-notarizations and expects to continue
developing and refining the use cases on an ongoing basis.
 
2. Transition to Oasis “RF on Limited Terms” IPR Mode. 

A. Approval of IPR Transition
STATUS: The TC completed its transition to the Oasis “Royalty Free on
Limited Terms” IPR mode. 

3. Other potential projects. 

A. Apostilles - Apostilles are international certifications regarding
the identity, seal and signature of notaries. There are a few data
fields only, as defined by the 1961 Hague Convention. 
STATUS: The TC will review work undertaken at a joint Hague/IULN/NNA
Forum on eNotarization and eApostilles and decide whether to include an
XML standard for apostilles as part of an XML standard for electronic
notarizations.

4. Future activities. 

A. 4th quarter 2006 – The TC will continue focusing on reviewing
background information relevant to an XML standard for electronic
notarizations. It also will continue developing and refining use cases
for electronic notarizations. The TC will develop proposals for
engaging a technical consultant to assist with drafting an
enotarization XML standard for the TC’s consideration. 

IV. Oasis LegalXML eContracts TC

 This quarter the eContracts TC began work on drafting our specification

document. Dr. Leff and his team have been hired to do the technical 
writing. They have delivered the initial draft plus the element 
reference. A couple of DTD issues have been identified and we expect a 
new revision soon. The content is basically in place and, after some 
revisions, we hope to complete this process and with it the 
responsibilities of the TC.

Integrated Justice Technical Committee (TC)

During the third quarter 2006, the OASIS LegalXML Integrated Justice
Technical Committee (TC) did not meet:
  
1. The committee will likely resume activity towards the end of the
first quarter of 2007 when the new NIEM release and GJXDM release are
available. At that time, the TC will revisit our charter and consider
future directions for the group. We need to make sure there is enough
need and interest in continuing the TC and for what specific
deliverables. 
  
2. Interim action items include updating the current version of the
GJXDM Methods Naming & Design Rules Document based on the last set of
written comments.

3. Add samples of conformant IEPDs to include in the current draft MNDR
appendix.