Tim Zarzycki, Senior Account Executive, ImageSoft, Inc.
Among the multitude of daily tasks performed by court clerks is responding to public requests for records. These records include case files, dockets/summaries of court cases and courtroom proceedings, records about defendants, criminal records, and long email threads, often with photos and videos attached. In addition to explaining court actions and decisions, these records are generally accessible to the public based on state sunshine laws, open records laws or public records laws. In an era of greater scrutiny and demands for transparency, clerks need better ways to handle public record requests.
It’s a juggling act that gets more complicated by the day.
Day-to-day challenges
Giving the public its right of access to public records can be a cumbersome challenge for paper-based courts or courts working without an integrated case management system. It clogs operations and requires scarce resources. In addition to coordinating and maintaining the case file associated with such requests, courts also face such challenges as:
- Siloed data and documents in each department with incompatible formatting — hunting down documents from multiple departments, locations and filing cabinets puts a burden on government staff and leads to lengthy fulfillment cycles
- Challenges of tracking and distributing requests, reviewing long email chains, making phone calls and hunting down documents; most tracking systems are spreadsheets that require manual data entry which further consumes staff time
- Need for a consistent layout for the request packet
- Need to maintain correspondence with requestor, additional departments
- Inconsistent/poorly defined request methods
- Audit trail requirements
- Protocols for redaction
- Retention times/discard times/destruction processes with certificates of destruction
- Fee collection processes
- Statutory deadlines for providing public records
- Document security
The right solution
JusticeTech’s public records solutions create a complete package to manage the full scope of public records needs, helping courts meet their legal responsibilities for transparency and open government initiatives. The solutions help court clerks and staff retrieve and bundle documents to meet record requests, provide self-service access to documents and records, automate the request process and redact confidential information. These solutions:
- Simplify request submission and delivery for constituents
- Provide comprehensive search for complete request fulfillment
- Improve process transparency and reporting for better constituent service
Read more about automating request for public records and keep that juggling act in the air.
How are you managing public requests for court records?