Justices will consider electronic filing of court documents

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Attorneys charging clients to have staff travel to the courthouse to file pleadings. Court staff searching for a paper case file to docket a new pleading.

Both practices might become obsolete, as electronic filing may be coming to a courthouse near you.

That’s assuming the state Supreme Court approves Director of State Courts A. John Voelker’s petition to create an e-filing rule for the state’s circuit courts.

The proposed rule, drafted by a committee charged with studying e-filing, would be incorporated into Ch. 801, the Rules of Civil Procedure. It would provide the structure for the voluntary exchange of electronic documents between courts, attorneys and self-represented litigants. Further, it would be integrated with the existing Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP) case management system.

The rule stems, in part, from data and anecdotal experiences gathered from a pilot project launched nearly three years ago, in Washington and Kenosha counties, with two volunteer law firms and their small claims collections cases.

The participants in that project tested the “next generation” of electronic filing, experimenting with Extensible Markup Language (XML) to insert data within PDF files.

PDF-based technology is currently used in Wisconsin’s federal courts. They found they preferred XML, and Voelker sought funding for it in the court’s budget proposal for the 2007-09 budget. However, that funding was deleted by Gov. Jim Doyle and was not reinstated by the Legislature. Thus, the proposed rule requires PDF technology.

The report accompanying Voelker’s petition states: “The court system budget proposed that the court be given authority to establish an electronic filing convenience fee to cover ongoing costs for maintenance, enhancements, and customer support. This proposal was included in the 2007-09 budget and is codified as Wis. Stats. 758.19(4m). The funding should be sufficient to cover the ongoing costs of the PDF-based system.”

E-filing would be voluntary, under the proposal. If cases were filed by the traditional means, the clerk would scan papers into the case management system to create a completely electronic file.

The justices will hold a public hearing on the petition on April 4.

Cautious Optimism

Voelker says Racine County Circuit Court Judge Gerald Ptacek will make the case for the petition’s adoption. Ptacek chaired the e-filing committee.

To the best of Voelker’s knowledge, no one opposes the concept of e-filing, but he expects concerns will be raised about the proposed methodology, such as whether it is secure.

He assures that it is, in addition to being more efficient and cost-efficient for courts, litigants and clerks.

“It will change a long-standing tradition; that will require a change in mindset for some.

For example, some people have trouble with the whole concept of digital signatures as a means of signing pleadings,” he states.

“But generally, what we’ve heard from lawyers across the state is, ‘When are we going to get e-filing?’ And, we think the clerks [of court] will like the change, too, even though in the short-term, it might increase their workload slightly, because to create an entirely electronic record, for those who do not use e-filing, the clerks will have to scan their documents into the CCAP system.”

Although judges, counsel and parties will have access to the electronic record, Voelker explains that the system will not give individuals electronic access to every pleading within a case file from their home computers. These are public records, but if someone not directly involved in the case wants to view them, he or she will still need to make a trip to the courthouse. Only case events will be available via the Internet, as is the status quo with the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA) Web site. This will be a significant difference from e-filing within the federal system, where case documents are available for purchase over the Internet.

E-filing is essentially already in place in some of Wisconsin’s criminal courts, in the approximately 50 counties where the district attorneys use the DA-PROTECT system.

Specifically, they file criminal complaints into DA-PROTECT, which transfers the information into the CCAP system.

In addition, e-filing has been implemented successfully in other state court systems, such as Colorado. In Colorado, however, the court system outsourced part of the process to a legal research vendor. The Wisconsin committee decided that it would prefer not to lose that degree of control over their proposed e-filing system.

As for the XML technology, Voelker says, “That could be phase two, but when and what will prompt that, I don’t really know at this point. It’s definitely the higher-end model of e-filing with its search capabilities, and some days, you want the luxury model. With PDF technology, however, we’ll still get a very solid product.”

He says that, should the rule be adopted, the courts would likely implement the process by case type, and in select counties. The likely candidates are small claims, since they are similar to what occurred in the pilot program, as opposed to starting out with a high-volume type such as divorces. If all goes well, within 18 months, e-filing would be available for all cases and in all counties.

The petition, No. 06-08 amended, is available online.