The Clerk’s Digital Courts Project The 21st Century is Here! The Clerk’s Digital Courts Project

The Criminal Courts Digital Project is Vital for More Efficient Records Management and Retrieval The clerks manage more than 4 million court records at three locations and a warehouse. Paper records are expensive to maintain, easily lost and damaged, and slow to retrieve complicating the integrity of both open and closed cases.

Digital Courts Vision The Digital Courts Project fulfills the objective of Vision 1 of the Dallas County Strategic Plan by: Using innovation to modify procedures to increase accuracy and efficiency Initiating new policies and procedures that make service delivery customer based Streamlining the clerk’s workforce for optimum efficiency of operation The Digital Courts Project will put Dallas County on the leading edge of technological innovation. Our goal is full a fully digital platform for judicial process within 10 years.

The “OnBase” Electronic Document Management System Judges, the Bar and the public will be using OnBase to access the records of the court. OnBase fully replaces the old paper file in an efficient, east to manage digital format. OnBase is linked directly to the Civil and Family court case management system known as Odyssey.

The “OnBase” Electronic Document Management System OnBase will also provide access to criminal court records and will be integrated into any future criminal court case management system. The courts can continue to operate normally even if the Odyssey case management system is disabled. OnBase provides a digital signature utility which will allow electronic documents to be signed from the bench or by defendants.

What Does an eDocument Look Like?

Additional OnBase Benefits Will provide attorneys remote access to the electronic case record from their offices. Pilot testing is currently underway and full implementation in May 2010.

Additional OnBase Benefits WiFi access in the courtroom will be developed to allow the Bar to access court records digitally without bringing paper files to the courthouse.

Additional OnBase Benefits Provides the public and media with fast access to court records. Access to paper records greater than 45 minutes; to electronic records, less than 5 minutes.

Additional OnBase Benefits Provides for central control of records and reduces the incidence of secondary data from expunged and non-disclosure cases by eliminating multiple paper copies within the county.

Additional OnBase Benefits Paper records are subject to damage, mutilation, loss and destruction due to disaster. Digital court records are “backed-up” in two offsite locations and are instantly retrievable.

Progress toward digital conversion The pilot criminal court, the 283rd Judicial District Court, Judge Richard Magnis, went “live” as a fully paperless court after all pending case files were imaged the weekend of August 17, 2009.

Progress toward digital conversion $314,000 worth of additional hardware to support digital conversion approved by commissioners court in 2009 and with installation and configuration completed in March 2010.

Progress toward digital conversion All remaining Civil and Family district courts, including Title IV-D courts, to be migrated to digital format by Summer 2010. Now working with Linebarger to migrate submission of paper tax cases to digital format.

Progress toward digital conversion All new indictments filed after January 1, 2010 for each of the 16 criminal district courts are now digital. No paper case jackets are produced. Roll-out of all criminal district courts was completed by December 2010.

What to Expect Business will be conducted as usual but there will no longer be a paper court file.

What to Expect Current paper-flow procedures and processes will remain the same, just result in an imaged document as the permanent Court record.

What to Expect The clerks will image all incoming documents to their court and attach to the electronic case file. OnBase document management system will integrate with the Sheriff’s AIS system for seamless digital process.

How will this benefit you? No more waiting around while the clerk tries to find your file No more waiting around in the Records department when you need conformed copies. No more missing or misplaced documents and delays.

How will this benefit you? Judges, the District Attorney and probation officers will be able to access electronic records from their offices. Remote off-site access of case records will allow attorneys to research cases from their offices.