Ohio: Courthouse on the cutting edge

From Crain's Cleveland Business, 12/20/2004. Several innovations at the Carl B. Stokes U.S. Court House in Cleveland are setting the pace for the rest of the country. For example, an e-filing system that predates the court's new building has brought a slew of multi-district cases to the court, making it a prototype for similar systems elsewhere. More recently, three courtrooms were outfitted with sophisticated evidence presentation technology, and a fourth will be updated soon. The court also became one of the first in the country to offer public access to all court records - including those involving criminal cases - over the Internet. ''These (technology upgrades) are not always easy to do,'' said Paul Matia, chief judge, adding that allowing the public Internet access to documents and records in criminal cases has been an especially challenging effort. ''We are still struggling with how to comply with privacy laws and standards and at the same time make it an efficient system.''

Judge Matia said all federal courts are slated to have similar electronic filing systems to Cleveland's by the end of 2005, yet his Cleveland-based court is trying to remain a trailblazer - or at least stay ahead of the technology curve. More than a year ago, for example, the court made electronic dockets filed in civil cases available online. In response to legislation passed in 2002 requiring government agencies to make more documents available over the Internet, the Northern Ohio District court also recently began to allow online access to documents filed in criminal cases. Judge Matia said court officials still are hashing out some of the details related to confidentiality and privacy but wanted to be one of the first district courts to meet the new mandate. Technology also is springing up in the courtrooms themselves, several of which have been upgraded with high-speed Internet access and large LCD screens. These ''electronic courtrooms'' make it easier to present and display evidence, eliminating the need to pass documents among jurors and/or blow up photographs and signatures. ''Jurors just love it,'' Judge Matia said. ''We will continue to work on the evidence technology and make it less expensive. I think the next big (upgrade) will be wireless.'' Worth the challenge Yet, while technology upgrades might have their challenges, Judge Matia said his court is up to the task. The Northern Ohio District court's ability to keep dockets unclogged and hear cases quickly led to thousands of asbestos cases filed in federal courts across the country during the late 1990s being consolidated to Cleveland. At the time, there literally were millions of documents related to the asbestos litigation that had to be filed manually by court employees. To speed up the process, the district courthouse launched an electronic system in 1997 that allowed attorneys to file records over the Internet. The efficiency created by the e-filing system was realized almost immediately, Judge Matia said. Because attorneys now do the filing themselves, there is less docketing for court employees to do and law firms save on the expenses of copying and couriers. What's more, the system is designed to notify and update instantly other attorneys involved in the litigation by e-mailing new filings automatically. When the court had to file cases itself, by contrast, other parties did not receive the filings for two or three days because of a lag created by docketing incoming materials. No shortage of e-mail Bob Tucker, managing partner of Cleveland-based Tucker Ellis & West LLP, said the ability to access and search filings and pleadings moments after they have been received by the court is a huge advantage of the electronic system. ''Especially when you are dealing with multi-district litigation that can be complicated with so many pleadings and so many plaintiffs, the ability to keep track of what is going on is greatly enhanced with e-filing versus the old way of doing things,'' Mr. Tucker said. While he concedes that getting up to 50 e-mails per day with filings attached has forced him to change the way he manages his work day, Mr. Tucker said the time savings associated with e-filing systems is ''a tremendous advantage for us and our clients.'' Nearly all filings coming into the Northern Ohio District today arrive via the electronic infrastructure. More than 4,000 attorneys from 1,500 law firms have electronically filed in excess of 300,000 documents, according to the court.