Clerk Dorothy Brown Enters the New Year with E-Court Initiatives

Updated Info Available Through Attorney Services Newsletter

By The Honorable Dorothy Brown's Clerk's Office Corner

As the year 2009 begins, the Office of the Honorable Dorothy Brown, Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, will either launch or continue the implementation of a slate of new electronic court (e-court) programs that will increase efficiency within the Clerk’s Office and enhance customer service for court users and justice system stakeholders.

Clerk Brown will keep attorneys apprised of these new initiatives through the Clerk’s Office’s Attorney Services Newsletter, which is available electronically. The most recent newsletter, issued December 2008, highlights the new E-Filing program and E-Pay/E-Guilty initiative, which are coming soon.

E-Filing will debut as a pilot program in the Law Division for Commercial Litigation attorneys, as early as March 2009. The Clerk’s Office will host a series of presentations to attorneys beginning in January 2009, to introduce them to the program and demonstrate how it works. In brief, E-Filing will allow for court documents to be filed through an automated processing service, which also incorporates document management and storage, and online docket and document viewing. Trainings in E-Filing for attorneys and other interested parties will be available through a series of classes, and through an online demonstration video.

The E-Pay/E-Guilty program, once it is fully installed, will allow traffic defendants to plead guilty and pay their court-diversion-eligible traffic fines via credit card on the Clerk’s Office’s website.

An electronic court initiative already active in the Clerk’s Office is E-Warrants, which has been implemented in the 1^st Municipal District Branch Courts, Central Bond Court, Domestic Violence Court, District 5 - Bridgeview and District 6 - Markham.

E-Warrants automates the preparation of warrants, allowing the complete, accurate, timely, and secure transfer of information, as well as the ability to exchange documents between agencies, the security of digital signatures on all documents, an electronic audit log to track changes in the status of information, and the ability for authorized users in every agency to access current information about each case.

Additionally, the Clerk’s Office has contracted with a firm to install an Integrated Document Management System (IDMS) in the near future. IDMS will allow clerks to immediately access an electronic copy of a court document, rather than having to search file rooms and off-site storage, thereby drastically reducing the Clerk’s Office’s dependence on the moving of paper files in order to process court cases

.

In total, these e-court programs and others currently in the planning stage, are completely revolutionizing the Clerk’s Office. “When installed and fully operational,” said Clerk Brown, “these various initiatives will fulfill my vision to automate the Clerk’s Office using the latest technology to provide better customer service to the citizens, law enforcement officers and court system stakeholders of Cook County.”

Attorneys interested in receiving the Clerk’s Office’s Attorney Services Newsletter, should register their email addresses on the Clerk’s Office’s website: cookcountyclerkofcourt.org or email: ecourt@cookcountycourt.com for more information.