RE: [legalxml-courtfiling] Contribution from OXCI project

["Chambers, Rolly" <rlchambers@smithcurrie.com>]

I commend MTG and its contribution to the TC of the OXCI Electronic
Filing Manager Architecture. The design decisions have been thoughtfully
considered and sound choices have been made.
 
I have one question/comment regarding the architectural piece and a
handful of comments/thoughts concerning the proposed Court Filing XML
schema.
 
The Architecture focuses on filings with a court appropriately enough,
but it was not clear how or whether the architecture also supports the
service of filings by a filer on other parties or their attorneys.
Procedural rules require me, as a lawyer, to send (i.e. serve) other
parties in a case with copy of pleadings, motions, or other filings that
I submit to a court. Does the OXCI architecture support this service
function or does it assume that lawyers will submit filings to a court
electronically via applications implementing the proposed architecture
but then serve copies of the filings on each other by some other means
such as regular mail, hand-delivery, or email?
 
A related question concerns whether the OXCI architecture supports the
service on other parties or their attorneys of documents that are not
filed with a court such as discovery (interrogatories, requests for
production of documents, deposition notices, offers of judgment, etc.).
 
The Court Filing XML schema apparently was generated by the DTD to XML
schema feature of XML Spy. Like similar DTD to XML schema applications,
the result is a fairly decent XML schema. However, the resulting XML
schema can be substantially improved and made more useful by modest
editing to add features available in XML schemas but not available in
DTDs. Providing for the following in the proposed XML schema would be
useful:
 
XML namespaces - the proposed XML schema has no default or
targetNamespace. An XML schema "best practice" is to declare the
targetNamespace as the default namespace. This approach eliminates
problems with element name collisions and other problems when one
schema, such as the Court Filing XML schema, is used with another, such
as the SOAP schema. Creating an XML namespace for the proposed Court
Filing XML schema would improve its utility significantly.
 
ANY content elements - the DTD to XML schema converter changed elements
in the DTD having ANY content (e.g. administrativeLaw, civil,
domesticRelations, etc.), which can contain any of the other elements
declared in the DTD, to elements having mixed content, which can contain
text and specifically declared elements. The mixed content elements in
the proposed XML schema, however, contain no declared elements. Thus,
filings containing an element within <civil/> will be valid against the
Court Filing DTD, but not against the proposed XML schema. The wildcard
component of XML schema is capable of providing substantially the same
function as ANY content in a DTD. Changing the "empty" mixed content
elements in the proposed Court Filing XML schema to use XML schema
wildcards would make the schema more equivalent to the DTD.
 
Enumerated element values - XML schema allow the declaration of
enumerated values for elements in addition to attributes. Many of the
elements (hairColor, eyeColor, race, etc.)  in the Court Filing 1.1 DTD
have required data values. Including such required data values as
enumerated element values in the proposed schema would prevent problems
that might occur if an element in a filing fails to contain the data
value required by the Court Filing 1.1 spec.
 
Datatyping - one of the major advantages of XML schema over DTDs is
datatyping. There are built-in data types available in XML schema for
date, time, integer, decimal, and others. It also is possible to declare
datatypes for data items such as zip codes or telephone numbers. The
proposed Court Filing XML schema uses only the string data type, but
might be made more useful if other XML data types were used where
appropriate.
 
I again commend MTG's contribution. Thanks for soliciting and
considering these suggestions.
 
Rolly Chambers 

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: John Greacen 
	Sent: Mon 3/10/2003 6:16 PM 
	To: Electronic Court Filing Technical Committeee 
	Cc: 
	Subject: [legalxml-courtfiling] Contribution from OXCI project
	
	

	I enclose a zipped file containing a report from MTG for OXCI
including a series of architectural recommendations for the OXCI product
and draft schemas for court filing and query and response.  The court
filing schema incorporates ebXML messaging and the elements from the
current version of the JXDDS.  Those are two of the objectives we have
set for ourselves for Electronic Court Filing “Blue.”  OXCI is
contributing these work products to this Technical Committee to use as
we see fit.  OXCI would also appreciate feedback on the architectural
piece and on the schemas.

	 

	John M. Greacen

	Greacen Associates, LLC

	HCR 78, Box 23

	Regina, New Mexico 87046

	505-289-2164

	505-780-1450 (cell)

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