Court Executive Officer in Orange County Encourages Use of eFiling and eService to Address Budget Crisis
Posted by Eric Winkler on Wed, Aug 03, 2011 @ 03:41 PM
The Superior Court of California, County of Orange, provided to One Legal an excerpt from an article written by Court Executive Officer Alan Carlson for Orange County Lawyer, a publication of the Orange County Bar Association.
The aritcle describes how the use of eFiling and eService can help the Court deal with the financial crisis as the California Judicial Branch grapples to cut $350 million from its budget. Here are some excerpts from the article:
How you can help the court with the financial crisis.
You can help mitigate the impending budget cuts by taking advantage of eFiling and eService. Currently, only 18 percent of general civil cases are eFiled at the Orange County Superior Court. As you might expect, the Court would like 100 percent of the cases to be eFiled. We cannot achieve this without your help and support.
You can help reduce the impact of these significant funding reductions. Begin, or expand, your use of eFiling and eService. Working collaboratively, we will keep our courthouse doors open and ensure public access to our courts. Together, we can mitigate the potentially negative impacts of further funding reductions expected in the next few years.
A message from Alan Carlson, Court Executive Officer:
"Electronic filing (eFiling) and electronic service (eService) began in Orange County Superior Court one year ago, and already its success has had an impact. The many advantages of eFiling and electronic documents include:
- Users of the eFiling system are able to conveniently file case documents 24 hours a day, seven days a week;
- eFiled documents upload directly to the court's case management system without the need for scanning or data entry;
- Documents that are eFiled are text searchable when downloaded, whereas the current scanned documents are not text searchable;
- Costs are reduced because eFiling eliminates manual data entry by court staff, data entry errors, scanning of documents, and filing the paper documents in case files; and
- Having electronic documents eliminates maintaining paper files and physically transporting files to and from courtrooms for hearings."
Note: if there is any feedback you would like One Legal to pass along to the Mr. Carlson, please feel free to post it in the comments section below and we'll make sure he receives it.