Show It to the Judge

Hoping to even the workload, the federal Bankruptcy Courts for the Central District of California are installing a $150,000 video conferencing system that links judges in Santa Ana to lawyers and others in Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Barbara and the San Fernando Valley.

The goal is to make the legal process easier and more efficient for litigants and the judges hearing their cases, said Jon D. Ceretto, executive officer and clerk of the court for Los Angeles.

“We’ve got 21 judges spread out over five courthouses. And we have an average of 120,000 filings per year--the most in the country,” Ceretto said. “We could move ZIP Codes around and transfer the cases to where we have more judges. Or we could use the technology to bring the judges to the caseload.”

From a video conference room, a judge can listen to arguments from attorneys or witnesses in as many as three other locations. The Sony digital system connects the remote sites through dedicated high-speed data lines.

The system is being installed in the Los Angeles courts now and is set to go into Santa Ana by the end of the year, officials said.

Court staff members envision bankruptcy lawyers eventually housing compatible video conferencing systems in their own offices.

“The price [on the equipment] is dropping every day,” said Sony spokeswoman Laura Hardin, who was showing the system last week at the Tele-Conference trade show at the Anaheim Convention Center.

“Someday, the attorneys won’t have to even show up to court. They’ll just dial into the courthouse from the privacy of their office.”

Other courts have already tested such virtual systems of law. The bankruptcy court buildings in Tampa, Orlando and Fort Myers, Fla., installed the Sony system last summer.

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P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com