Paperless Success at Lake County Indiana

Lake County Indiana is the second largest county in the state of Indiana. With a population of a half million people, Lake County Courts handle a lot of paper. The crush of paper was causing escalating costs for attorneys, the Clerk’s Office and the Courts. There was no end in sight with ever increasing volumes and decreasing budgets, and nowhere to store the paper files. Additionally the time to find case files and move the paper to where it was needed was slowing the process to a crawl with complaints from all involved in the process.

Just when the situation appeared to be reaching crisis mode, a leader surfaced in the person of Judge  Jeffery Dywan.

Judge Dywan had firsthand knowledge of the issues, and had an idea of how to deal with them. Paperless Court Case Filing was the answer, and when he looked at the potential benefits it struck him like it must have hit the inventor of wheels on suitcases! This is the only way to go!

Judge Dywan was the project sponsor of the Electronic Court Case Filing Project for the Lake County Courts. The project participants included all of the stakeholders including a selection of Attorneys and their staff, representatives of the Clerks staff, and judges and courts staff. The first implementation, which included Mortgage Foreclosure cases, went live on February 1, 2010. While it has been an adjustment for a few who find it difficult to give up the paper the overall feedback has been very positive, and Lake County is now pushing forward with additional case types including Collection Cases (CC), Civil Tort (CT), Plenary (PL), and Miscellaneous (MI).

System Description

The Lake County E-filing System is an Internet Based Court Case Filing and Service System. This System is different from other E-Filing Systems in that it focuses on the total case filing process and provides paperless processing support and benefits to all parties in the process, including Attorneys, Clerks, and Courts. The system seamlessly integrates with the existing court case management system to eliminate duplication of entries and wasted effort, and to present a uniform view of court case records. The System provides 24/7 rapid processing of filings from any Internet connected computer. The system is easy to use with simple step-by-step screens that utilize standard internet methods. The system is adaptable, and will handle all civil and criminal case types. The System is built with the latest web based technology in a simple and straightforward manner. It is built for performance and designed for dependability with immediate failover architecture, and with demonstrated 99.99% availability. It includes various training tools and possibilities, including Quick Start Guides, Onsite Training, and Web based self training, or Webinar Training driven by an instructor. Web based training is ideal for training remote sites, or for training large numbers of attorneys and their staff in their office.

The Lake County System provides the following benefits to all users of the system:

·        Reduced paper handling including printing, copying, filing, and mailing. Providing the benefits of reduced costs for paper, printers/copiers and supplies, postage costs, and storage space, and the reduced time for printing, copying, filing and retrieving, preparation and stuffing and mailing of documents. The system supports the move to green processing saving large amounts of paper and energy.

·        Reduced data entry. The attorney enters the case information once. There is no need for the clerk to re-enter information into the Court Case Management System. Subsequent filings by attorneys, clerks or courts will utilize the information already on file for preparation of their new filing thus reducing errors and limiting data entry to new information only.

·        Reduced handling/processing time. The system allows customization of responsibilities and processing flows within the attorneys, clerks and courts. For example each court can define their own flows and responsibilities including the incoming mail handling, scheduling events, reviewing motions, etc. Filing events are routed electronically, with each party involved performing their activities, attaching comments if needed, and then forwarding on for the next action. All forwarding actions and comments are kept on electronic sticky notes that show the routing history of each filing event.

·        Immediate notification and availability of the most current filings by all parties. As soon as any party (Attorneys, Clerks, Courts) files on a case, all attorneys on the case are notified electronically by an email, and by a notice of electronic filing and service in their queue. Both current and historical files can be viewed anywhere there is an internet connection, on most any internet capable device. User access and authority is controlled by user-id and password, and private information is only viewable as authorized. All private and secure information is SSL secured and encrypted for storage and communication.

·        Reduced handling of financial transactions with automated accounting updates and receipting. All filing expenses are collected electronically, and receipted and distributed to the correct accounts. Attorneys can easily download case expense information on Excel files or other formats to create their own custom reports.

·        Automation results in significantly reduced errors. Re-use of previously entered data, automated edits and controls, and automated processing will reduce errors by up to 80%-90%.

·        The system as implemented at Lake County has also been self-funding. This was accomplished by collecting fees from attorneys. These fees represent a share of the benefits the system provides attorneys due to reduced paper handling including printing, copying, and mailing of paper. Not to mention the elimination of trips to the clerk’s office. The fees include an annual registration fee, and a onetime per case appearance fee. The system has now paid for itself, and any fees collected are now feeding a Web Maintenance Fund that pays for maintenance and continued future system development.

The Lake County E-Filing System is available from eCourtSystems Inc. and is called the CourtFileNow System.

eCourtSystems Inc. can be reached at 219-864-9911, and their website is www.ecourtsystems.com