RE: [legalxml-courtfiling] Roger Winters' departure from our ranks

["O'Brien, Robert" <Robert.OBrien@cas-satj.gc.ca>]

The very, very best to Roger, the epitome of that phrase, "a scholar and
a gentleman".

-----Original Message-----
From: John M. Greacen [mailto:john@greacen.net] 
Sent: April 28, 2008 7:01 PM
To: legalxml-courtfiling@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [legalxml-courtfiling] Roger Winters' departure from our ranks

Please read the email below from Roger Winters.  

 

Roger has been one of the TC members of longest standing.  We will miss
his contributions and him personally.  The way that we can best honor
Roger in the future will be to continue to pay attention to his most
constant issue and concern - one that is reflected eloquently once again
in this farewell email - that our documents need to be accessible and
understandable to court lay people.

 

I ask Robin Gibson to initiate a nomination and election process to
select a successor to Roger as our TC's representative on the LegalXML
Member Section Steering Committee.  I originally used "replace" in the
previous sentence but realized its inappropriateness; no one will every
replace Roger Winters.

 

From: rwinterswa@gmail.com [mailto:rwinterswa@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
Roger Winters
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 11:20 AM
To: john@greacen.net
Subject: Changes

 

Dear John:

I am writing you in your role as Chair of the Electronic Court Filing
Technical Committee. With regret, I must resign as Editor, as Steering
Committee Representative for the technical committee, and as co-chair of
the Documents Subcommittee. It has been an honor to serve in those
capacities.

I recently reached the decision to retire from King County. Why? Because
I realized I could! I have always carried a very full plate of
activities, in my job, in related work (like OASIS LegalXML and ARMA),
and in my community. It has been increasingly difficult to give myself
fully to my work in all those areas. For all too long, I have lacked
time and energy for important personal priorities. 

I want to say that, as Editor, I reviewed nearly all of version 4.0 of
the technical committee's specification. I found it to be a well-written
piece and I congratulate Jim Cabral and the technical committee for its
overall quality. I did not have the opportunity to discuss the document
with Adam Angione, as we had hoped, so I leave it to him to add his
comments and suggestions independently. For me, 4.0 gets a "Do Pass"
recommendation with one caution: I continue to find it difficult to
relate the specification directly to the work of court clerks or
administrators who may not have much experience with such technical
material. I think there are a couple of ongoing challenges: to promote a
"generalist's" understanding of the technical standards, and to help
court leaders visualize how the standards will help them to develop
their own systems more successfully. I recommend a strong
cross-reference to the "Standards for Electronic Filing Processes
(Technical and Business Approaches)," for its excellent introduction to
the subject (at least through page 47). The outreach on which the
technical committee plans to work this year is very important to keep
momentum going. 

The technical committee may now wish to reconsider its plan to meet in
Seattle in August. You might contact Superior Court Clerk Barbara Miner
(barbara.miner@kingcounty.gov) about King County's plan for an
electronic court records conference at approximately that time. Do not
count on my being involved; it is too soon for me to know.

Regarding my goals relating to the Court Documents Subcommittee, I came
to feel it would take more time and energy than I could give it even if
I were to remain on the job for another two years. A great deal can be
done by showing how to use existing standards and metadata to bring some
level of automation to the "Clerk Review" process. The potential for
most court savings may lie here, given that a great many courts have not
been able to let go of keeping paper records when introducing electronic
filing and document imaging. I believe there is potential for much more
efficiency from initiatives that preserve and use the digital qualities
of court documents that are destroyed by printing them or that are left
unused when treating them as "electronic" papers. I think Rex McElrath
understands what I hoped to foster by co-chairing that subcommittee and
I encourage the technical committee to encourage his efforts to give
more attention to the court document as a data container as well as a
record.

After an adjustment period, I expect to involve myself again in work
about which I care the most. That could include OASIS and LegalXML. For
now, I'm drawing no conclusions. I am re-booting myself (so to speak)
and I will discover what I want to do next. I would like to share what I
have learned from my 20 years with court records, paper and electronic,
but I do not yet know how that might happen. I am glad to have the
opportunity to reconsider possibilities. I feel I still have much to do;
I do not intend to be invisible.

Please convey my warm regards to the technical committee and feel free
to share this e-mail as you see fit. My contact information is below and
I welcome my friends and former colleagues to be in touch whenever they
will. 

Very truly yours,

       Roger

Roger Winters
601 S. Washington St. #309
Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 755-2526
rwinters@seanet.com