Patricia Gabel, the court administrator for the Vermont Judiciary. File photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger
The Vermont Judiciary recently began rolling out an online case management system, one its designers say will streamline and unify certain court procedures.
The public portal provides role-based access to court records and other data from anywhere in the state. It also allows people to pay traffic tickets or citations online.
According to Court Administrator Patricia Gabel and Chief Information Officer Jeffery Loewer, the update is necessary — but it is also a “big change.”
“We didn’t just look at our current business processes and say, ‘OK, how can we just make those electronic,’” Gabel said. “When you make a change like this, it is actually a business process change. The business processes in the court, both for staff and for judges, change because of the nature of the product that we’re using.”
On June 3, those changes — which have been in the works since 2015 — finally began to be implemented. The online system is currently in the early stages of its 18-month rollout.
The process began with the Judicial Bureau, and it will come to counties around the state in four waves beginning in fall 2019. The system should be entirely operational by early 2021.
The Judicial Bureau has jurisdiction over civil crimes, such as motor vehicle violations and hunting and fishing, among others.
A screenshot of the Vermont Judiciary Public Portal
In the coming months, courts can expect an expanded network of informational kiosks — where viewers can access certain information in the courthouse — and electronic filing for documents submitted by attorneys. There will be some shifts in fees as well, as current costs are eliminated and corresponding expenses take their place.
According to Loewer, court committees are also looking at the rules around public access to court records. The rules will be updated to reflect “both the current state of affairs at the court and any changes that might be influenced by the system,” Loewer said.
As of now, all current rules regarding privacy and file access remain in effect.
While some aspects of the ultimate system may not yet be in their final form, however, the rollout in the Judicial Bureau left Gabel and Loewer optimistic.
There were some hiccups: a few days of limited operationality due to data conversion, and a backlog of traffic tickets. With a laugh, Gabel referenced two weekends when it was “all hands on deck.” But after getting through the transition process, both said that the system is now running smoothly.
“Rollouts are complicated and stressful, but by all measures, this one has gone great,” Loewer said.
Already, the current iteration of the online case management system is more successful than any of its predecessors.
The outgoing, mostly analog case management system dates back to 1990. It was updated between 2000 and 2001 to create a data warehouse and an online access system — but almost 20 years later, much of that technology is now outdated. There is no backup in case data gets destroyed, and information is at risk of human error during the input process.
“At this point, not replacing the current outdated and unsupported application poses increasing risks to courts due to the ongoing possibility of system failure and permanent loss of data from which the Judiciary may not recover,” Loewer wrote in a project brief in 2015.
Between 2009 and 2012, the Judiciary made its first attempt at digitizing the case management process. The project went awry, however, when IT company New Dawn Technologies failed to deliver its promised outputs on schedule. In 2013, the state and the company settled — an agreement that gave the Judiciary $700,000 of the $1.7 million it spent on the initiative.
Gabel said that, while the problems in 2013 made some legislators wary, the experience made her office better equipped to tackle the change a second time.
“I think we learned a lot from that experience,” Gabel said. “That’s one of the reasons why, when we went back to the Legislature, we went back with a much larger budget proposal, and we also committed to formal project management.”
The initial issues also revealed the importance of partnering with a “tried and true” technology company, Gabel added. The current firm, Tyler Technologies, fits that description: it already operates case management systems in at least 12 states.
Four years into the most recent effort to move to an electronic system, both Gabel and Loewer said that they are satisfied with where the project is heading this time around.
“Our project team has done a great job of making this happen,” Loewer said. “I think we all are grateful to the hard work and dedication of our fellow judiciary employees.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Judiciary rolling out online case management system.