While taking a cautious approach, many courts in New York are shifting away from paper and encouraging digital innovation in the interest of increasing effectiveness and efficiency.

This is evident particularly in New York's Commercial Division, where judges have been increasingly turning to technology to expedite the division's complicated and time-consuming cases, and where a proposed rule change would mandate some use of technology in the courtroom.

The proposed amendment to Commercial Division Rule 6, out for comment until Sept. 10, would require bookmarking of PDF documents, which would allow a user to click a link on a table of contents to navigate easily within a document.