Lawyers in two Vermont counties want to block the rollout of a new electronic filing system for court records, citing difficulties with access.
Attorneys Steven Dunham, Rosanna Chase and Paul Groce, who work for the Vermont Defender General’s Office, are the plaintiffs in the case, which has been brought on behalf of their clients.
The lawsuit and emergency motion for preliminary injunction is filed against Patricia Gabel, Vermont’s court administrator, and state courts in Grand Isle and Franklin counties. Those two counties are next in line for implementation of the new court electronic filing system, known as Odyssey. Several other counties are already online. The court has phased in the statewide system.
The preliminary injunction seeks only to block the rollout in Grand Isle and Franklin counties. The next phase of implementation includes Caledonia, Essex, Lamoille, Orleans and Washington counties.
The plaintiffs say they are not impressed with what they have seen so far.
“Odyssey’s rollout has suffered technical issues that endanger access to the court. It requires dedicated broadband internet,” the defense attorneys wrote. Many of their clients do not have reliable high speed internet needed to adequately access the system.
“Worse,” they wrote, “now that most attorneys are working remotely (typically from home) again, many are discovering that they do not have the technological infrastructure needed to access their cases.”
A message Thursday to Gabel was returned with an email from Charity Clark, chief of staff for Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan. The Attorney General’s Office is defending the state’s court system.
Clark said the attorney general’s office is reviewing the lawsuit and motion for preliminary injunction and will file a response.
“I would note that thousands of Vermonters have already successfully used the judiciary’s e-filing system,” Clark wrote. “We are all committed to ensuring access to justice during these difficult times.”
In April, when the system first rolled out for courts in Orange, Windsor and Windham counties, lawyers raised concerns about the difficulty of using it.
One lawyer referred to the new system as a “hot mess.” Others said they lacked the training to navigate it.
Complaints were also raised about fees for certain users to submit electronic filings, which included a $5.25 fee for each “envelope,” or “an assemblage of documents filed together at one time in one case.”
Those fees were waived for government agencies “statutorily exempt,” such as the Vermont Defender General’s Office and state prosecutors’ offices. A user could also seek a waiver due to financial status.
Also, people representing themselves still have the option to submit paper filings, thereby avoiding the fee. The fees, which applied to cases in civil, probate and family courts, did not extend to criminal cases.
The filing fee payments were originally to be sent to Tyler Technologies, a company in Plano, Texas, that the state court system contracted with for Odyssey, the electronic court records management system. Courts and justice agencies in seven countries and 28 U.S. states use the products, according to the company’s website.
The fee was to provide for 24/7 software support and the infrastructure to run the system.
After concerns were raised about the fees and whether they even could be levied, the Legislature stepped in.
Lawmakers set aside about $150,000 in federal funds through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to allow the fees to be suspended as the court administrator’s office tries to renegotiate its deal with Tyler Technologies.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday the panel heard concerns last session about the court’s new electronic filing system.
“This was completely the court’s decision,” Sears said. “There’s been a lot of problems with it.”
Since the implementation began last year, Sears said he has heard complaints about glitches with the new system.
“Obviously, it’s fraught with problems,” he said.
The move to halt the latest implementation of the new court filing system was initially brought in Franklin County civil court, but has since been moved to Chittenden County civil court. A hearing on the emergency motion for the preliminary injunction is set for Feb. 4.
The filing says the new system comes at an already difficult time for the courts due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the delay in most proceedings, except those dealing with emergency matters. Using the new system has not been easy, the attorneys said.
“Errors in the filing process — by practitioner and administrator alike — can result in filings being wrongfully rejected,” the filing stated, “sometimes taking as long as two weeks to properly get before the court.”
The attorneys said “If a filing is urgent, the current best practice is for counsel to make a filing, and then keep checking in with court staff to ensure that it receives prompt attention. This heaps even further administrative burdens on practitioners and court staff.”
Gabel, the court administrator, has said the new system saves attorneys postage or travel time to a court, and with the ongoing pandemic allows for the filings to filed or accessed remotely rather than in person.
Vermont Defender General Matthew Valerio said Thursday that, because it is a matter of pending litigation, there was little he could say about the lawsuit and request for a preliminary injunction.
“What I can say is that there have been problems with Odyssey and the rollout and changes as far as training and understanding it,” he said. “It seems that most everybody is working hard on that.”
Dunham, the supervising attorney for public defenders in Franklin and Grand Isle counties, and Andrew Sullivan, who is listed as the attorney submitting the filings, could not immediately be reached Thursday for comment.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Lawyers sue to halt rollout of Vermont courts’ electronic filing system.