About John Cook Associates Inc
Courts rely on a culture of historical and manual processes which inadvertently created barriers of access between citizens and their judicial system. After familiarizing myself with the environment, processes, mission, and culture, I began to develop and share a vision of an integrated judiciary. To realize this vision, I helped develop a strategy to leverage the internet and relational database systems to assist the court with communication and administration/research needs. One of the longstanding problems in the criminal justice system is its inability to share information efficiently among separate agencies, especially during the Internet period. Most court stakeholders waited days if not weeks to receive court dockets, criminal history profiles and wrap sheets, driver license lookups, and inmate placement listings. As technology continued advancing, government agencies were slow to react, compounding the access issues. As the lead technical representative, I helped create bridges to information by leading the design the state's first distributed XML based data exchange system. Now considered an essential component, the system reduces delay of court proceedings by providing secure access to multiple sources of information from a common web interface.