The department, three years into a successful pilot project, has created the foundation for eventual expansion of a networked case management and imaging system to more sections of the court. The system eliminated the need for court attorneys, paralegals, judges and commissioners to locate inches-thick case files in someone else's office.
"I didn't realize how much nonproductive time was spent looking for a file," said Linda Martinez, Probate Court supervising attorney. Other times, she said, when cases were about to be completed she would discover that a document was missing or never filed. "But now," Martinez said, "everything is there in one workstation."
Going nearly paperless has helped the department close cases with more efficiency and speed, Martinez said. "Imaging facilitates it by making [documents] available online."
PAPERWORK ON DEMAND
The Probate Department handles estates, custodianship, will resolutions, and similar matters. While most of the cases are more a matter of procedure than dispute, files tend to quickly thicken with paperwork because there are usually multiple parties involved.
Instead of moving files through the office, the department's judges, attorneys, probate examiners and other court employees have imaging workstations at their desks. The desktop units, which number about 60, are connected to 16 servers in a "cluster workstation architecture," said Droll, as opposed to PCs using the server as a file server. "In this case, the cluster-control server is also doing the processing," he said.
Files are stored on a jukebox that holds 12-inch platters. Servers connect the data stored on platters to the workstation network. Another server is used to load new documents into the document and case management system. Cases that will be handled in the following several days are fetched from platters and stored on a server to facilitate access to those files.
Scanners are used to load documents into the system. Documents submitted for filing are indexed according to the appropriate case number, and original copies are filed for safekeeping.
Filenet Corp. equipment is used for the imaging application, and the company assisted in implementing the application. The company's contract with the county includes a fixed price of about $1 million and shared development costs.
SPEEDY RESOLUTION
Before the imaging system, it could take more than a week before documents would be in the proper case file because the folder often had to be tracked down, which was time consuming. But now, the document is available across the network in less than a day. "Examiners can review a case the next day, and there is no problem with losing paper," Droll said. Because paper handling went down by about 30 percent, he said, five staff members who used to do filing were reassigned to other court tasks.
FILES ON REQUEST
Another key to Orange County's successful pilot is the ability to make files available on request. "Before, only one person could look at a file," Droll said. "You had to track it down if you wanted to look at it."
Probate employees can also retrieve documents within different or the same files for review. "Now, rather than getting the entire file," said probate attorney Martinez. "You can select documents that are pertinent. It's a lot easier than the paper files."
By making cases available on request, the department was able to eliminate their slow system in which only one person at a time could review a case. "We used to have to wait for everyone to see it and we had to get it to a judge before a hearing," Martinez said. "But now, we don't have as many people to go through."
Essentially, what the Probate Department is doing is pushing completion of cases to the lowest court level possible, and clearing judges for only tasks they need to handle, such as resolving a conflict over a case. The majority of the cases are resolved by staff. With the imaging system, employees can determine what level in the court can finish a case, which speeds up resolution.
Average courtroom time, for example, has gone from about three hours to a half-hour, Droll said. "This is because there is time to review the files beforehand," he said. "The shuffle in the courtroom is reduced."
Martinez said judges used to have more than 50 files to review in a day, and would often need to continue cases because of insufficient or missing documents. But now, because much of the documentation is handled at lower levels in the department, judges are freed to resolve disputed cases. Judges are also plugged into the imaging system, and can retrieve case files and documents while working in chambers.
SQUEEZING INTO CASE MANAGEMENT
The Superior Court already had a case tracking system which uses a relational database when it began implementing the imaging system. "We had to cross-index the imaging and case management sections," Droll said. "We had to do some brute-force programming." Managing this risk is one reason the pilot project approach was used.
In the late 1980s, the Probate Department was one of several county offices requesting imaging technology. The Board of Supervisors were convinced in 1989 and earmarked $1.3 million for an imaging pilot project, and Probate was selected to test the technology.
With the success of the Probate Department, the county plans to move to the second phase, which will be family law. The third phase will be civil court, the largest portion of the Superior Court.
Due to the county's bankruptcy protection filing last December, there is no timeline for moving forward, and projects have been put on hold until further review of the situation, Droll said. "We're not in a draconian situation. But what's next remains to be determined."
