The JT/DL is a twice-monthly newsletter about justice technology news, events, and opportunities. My opinions do not reflect those of my employers or professional partners.
Celebrating Eight Years, & I’m hiring
I sent my first missive as the Justice Tech Download in the fall of 2018. I had just started teaching at Georgetown Law with Keith Porcaro and landed a full-time gig at the American Bar Association writing about law and technology. As far as I was concerned, I’d made it in justice tech.
The story didn’t end there, however. Over the subsequent years, I went from journalist to product manager to founder, working alongside justice systems the whole way. Each move felt like I was taking a run into a field with an untrod path. And time and again, I found tracks and trails because someone went out of their way to help me out.
Now, I lead the Tech, Data, & KM team at the National Center for State Courts, and I get to be the one identifying the path for those making their way in justice tech.
The Team
We’re a fully remote group of U.S.-based technologists, data specialists, and court management experts working with courts across the country. One week we might be in the Mountain West helping a court write its data governance policy. The next, we’re in the South completing a product teardown of a case management system or digging into a novel dataset to find a national trend nobody has spotted.
This work is only becoming more urgent. AI is pushing courts to plan for the future while exposing how much of the present still needs work. Systems don’t talk to each other. Security and privacy are uneven. A lot of court data has no governance. Courts need help with all of it at once, and demand is growing faster than the number of people who can provide that help. As long as there are courts, there will be tough problems worth solving.
Who I’m looking for
To build our roster, I need people who have built things in legal, civic, or gov tech and want to extend their skills into the courts, if they haven’t already. I want creative, entrepreneurial people who are comfortable taking risks alongside the judges, clerks, and administrators operating our nation’s judiciaries.
Role 1: Data Scientist ($100,000–$124,800)
This person will support our work across access to justice, vulnerable populations, and core court operations. That means managing and wrangling data, and also turning it into narratives and visualizations a court leader can act on. You’ll also help shape our growing AI portfolio, by helping us identify new tools and build evaluation standards. Court data experience is a plus, but justice sector data work of any kind goes a long way.
Role 2: Principal Court Management Consultant, a product role ($120,000–$149,000)
Don’t let the title throw you, I’m looking for someone with a product background that wants to expand that skill set in new and novel ways. This role is for someone who has built products for institutional users (doing so for courts is a bonus, not a requirement) and wants to build something new: a practice that helps state and local courts buy, implement, and manage technology well. You’ll lead our vendor management work and bring what you know about how products get made to the people buying them. You’ll also help grow our court technology practice, by developing internal requirement writing processes and fostering new external engagements. An entrepreneurial mindset will go a long way in this role.
Both roles are fully remote within the U.S. and require regular travel. Applications close 10/30 and are reviewed on a rolling basis. I can’t answer individual questions about the roles, so the best way to start the conversation is by applying.
If neither role is for you, please forward this to someone who might be a fit. I know firsthand what it means when someone points you down the right path.
News
Anthropic’s Claude AI submits a false tip on a Philadelphia unsolved homicide case. (CBC)
Evaluating AI-assisted sentencing bias analysis for California Racial Justice Act claims. (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) (h/t Heather Caspers)
Evidence from a nationwide rollout of generative AI for judges. (Elliott Ash)
Criminal justice is deploying AI faster than rules around it. (GovTech)
State governments need an AI agenda of their own. (Center for Civic Futures)
The Massachusetts AG joins an effort to protect AI chatbot data. (GovTech)
Flock’s drone business is booming. (Fast Company)
Experts say other police surveillance tools are more worrisome than Flock. (NPR)
Cops can use a single photo to pinpoint your house. (404 Media)
Oxford launches a justice innovators program (that sounds an awful lot like a judicial innovation fellows program). (University of Oxford) (h/t Sean McDonald)
Large Language Models: An applied econometric framework. (NBER)
Events
Measures for Justice is hosting To the Dashboard and Beyond: Engaging Communities with Data on October 21. (M4J)
The A2J Network Conference will be in Cincinnati October 21-22. (A2JN)
When being data-driven feels out of reach is October 26. (emP) (h/t Jason Melchi)
eCourts is in Las Vegas December 7-9. (NCSC)
Jobs & Opportunities
Anthropic is accepting economic futures research applications. (A)
[New] Arnold Ventures is hiring for a chief of staff for its criminal justice team. (AV) (h/t Keith Porcaro)
The Brennan Center for Justice has multiple openings. (BCJ)
The Center for Democracy and Technology has academic externships. (CDT)
[New] The Free Law Project needs a director of philanthropy. (FLP)
[New] The German Marshall Fund of the U.S. needs a tech policy fellow. (GMF)
Go From Here is hiring for multiple roles. (GFH)
The University of Chicago Crime Lab has multiple openings. (UCCL)
Code for America has multiple openings. (CfA) (h/t Russ Finkelstein)
Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation and NextLadder Ventures launched the navigation tech initiative. (DRK) (h/t Keith Porcaro)
[New] January Advisors needs a short-term contractor. (JA)
[New] The National Center for State Courts (me, specifically) needs a data scientist and a product manager looking to become a consultant. (NCSC)
Northeastern is hiring professors focused on AI governance. (NEU) (h/t Matthew Burnett)
OpenMinded has multiple openings. (OM)
[New] The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office needs a analytics engineer. (PDAO) (h/t Oren Gur)
[New] Ready State Labs is hiring a founding team. (RSL)
Recidiviz has multiple openings. (R)
Renaissance Philanthropy is hiring for multiple roles. (RP)
[New] The Tennessee Courts need a Director of Transformation. (TC)