Highland County Common Pleas Court working toward launching website

  The Highland County Common Pleas Court will soon be launching a website with the hope it will increase courtroom transparency, while making better use of court employees' time, which in turn could end up saving the county some dollars. 

  Judge Rocky Coss said that the creation of a website for the court, as well as an online docket, is something that he has been working on for over a year. 

  "Many courts have already done this in other counties, and our municipal court did it several years ago," Coss said.

  "What the advantages are is kind of a two-step process. With the development of the website, we're trying to make information available to the public. Every day, we have people walking or calling the court staff or the clerk of courts office wanting to check something or ask questions; if a hearing has been scheduled or if an entry has been filed. Of course, that takes time, and sometimes, they ask for something that can't be accomplished right away."

  Coss said that the court docket will be available in two-week increments, and will show which cases have been scheduled and will be heard.

  They will also be able to keep track of individual cases through an eAccess feature that allows viewing of individual cases, through a name or case number.

  While individual documents will not be available online, viewers can see schedules for hearings, trial dates, attorneys and addresses.

  The website will also feature jury information, which could someday replace the phone system the court currently uses for keeping jurors informed on whether or not they are required to report. 

  "We're trying to be more efficient in getting information for the public," Coss said. "We're working with reduced staff, and that makes it more difficult for people to get the answers to their questions. Often, we'll have to say that is not available right now,' or that we don't have that information yet. It's going to be a really good tool."

  The website and online features are being funded through the court's special projects fund, which is funded through fees for filing court cases, so it will not draw money away from the county's general fund. Special projects also supports the court's mediation program. 

  While there are thousands of dollars that will go into the new projects, Coss said that the new technologies will free up court staff for other tasks, and that the court has worked toward economical implementation. 

  In December, the county signed a contract with Greystone Systems, which handles all of the county's IT support. 

  "The website is $10,800, and that is for the design and other construction and other associated fees," Coss said. "Then, there is the eAccess part of the project. We had to buy the Court View license, and that cost approximately $12,600, which was at a 25-percent discount from the normal $17,500, and there is an annual fee of $3,762 for maintenance and so forth. We had to add one server in order for this to work. Court View, which has the contract for all the court records, downloads all the information from the clerk's office, and puts in filters in the programming and tells the server what to make available to the public. It's then going to a second server that the public will access, so it cuts down on the possibility of someone hacking into the system through this access."

  The court would have had to pay in excess of $25,000 for the server, along with a monthly fee of $520, but they have opted to lease the equipment for $785 a month. Coss said that seemed like the more economical option, and because the county does not own the equipment outright it will allow for easier replacement when it becomes outdated." 

  The Supreme Court of Ohio, according to Coss, is putting together a task force to examine the possibility of implementing a statewide court network. 

  "They are looking at the feasibility of that," he said, "and while that will be in development for years, I can see that we are moving toward mandated electronic filing. The federal courts now won¹t even accept papers, as well as some state courts. That is the way technology is moving, toward an electronic court system. The lawyers want it, and the court is realizing

it."

  While development of the site is ongoing, it most likely will not launch for a few more months. 

  "This has taken a lot of coordination," Coss said. "This has been a been program. I started working on it in 2009 and there was so much coordination with the various vendors and the designs and all of the information. We are hoping the designer will have the website ready (by the first part of January). The eAccess will not be available until February. Once it is loaded and the servers are installed, we will test it (internally) before making it live to the public. Undoubtedly, there are going to be bugs, but we want to get as many of them worked out as we can before going live, which will most likely be in the middle of February."

  Coss said that the project will ultimately save county funds because it can allow court employees to make better use of their time.

  "This has unlimited potential to help the public, and to help us do more with less," Coss said, which is what we've been trying to do (for the last two years) because of the financial situation. When you're working with fewer people, you're got to do whatever you can to take the workload off those folks. The implementation of technology will be beneficial to them and to the public, and the the public treasury."