Going Online Tops Waiting in Line for Court Records

The slogan is displayed on posters around courthouses in Los Angeles County: “Don’t Wait In Line: GO ONLINE!”

The Los Angeles County Superior Court is expanding public access to online court records, part of a nationwide trend to make the justice system more convenient and accessible -- and to save the court time and money.

Website users can download civil court files, run criminal name searches, look up calendars and indexes, pay for traffic tickets, and request extensions for traffic school.

In some parts of California, lawyers can file documents and small claims cases electronically.

“There is a huge cultural shift,” said Jane Evans, who works with the court technology advisory committee of the California Judicial Council.

But because the judicial system has been hit hard by state budget cuts in the last few years, many smaller courts have not had the funds to offer electronic services. They need specialists to monitor and update websites, as well as the scanning equipment to post documents online.

Even in the larger counties, courts probably will never move completely to electronic systems.

“I don’t see the day in our lifetime we are going to see a paperless court,” said John A. Clarke, executive officer of Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Clarke said the county has made significant progress on electronic access, and will continue to do so.

For the courts, online access reduces staff workload, increases efficiency and cuts customer lines at the courthouses. It offers 24-hour access without the need to trek to the courthouse. Increased electronic access makes the court system more transparent.

However, there have been a couple of wrinkles.

For example, privacy concerns have been raised about posting potentially sensitive information on the Internet.

“It’s a tricky balance between people’s right to know and considerations of privacy and safety,” said Allan Parachini, spokesman for L.A. County Superior Court.

The public has a right to access most court records, but that right does not extend to certain records such as those for juvenile and adoption cases. But most people are not aware of what kind of information is available, said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He said records at courthouses have been “public but obscure.”

The foundation doesn’t oppose posting documents online, but it says the court should not make available Social Security numbers or home addresses. Tien added that court documents in divorce and custody cases often include extensive personal family histories. “Family law cases raise huge issues,” he said.

There also have been some worries about people exploiting the information.

“The very ease creates a new risk for the potential misuse,” said Martha Steketee, a research associate for the National Center for State Courts. Steketee recently co-wrote a set of guidelines for state courts on public access to records.

Despite the concerns, more court information is going online around the nation.

“This has become sort of a revolution that is happening because there is such a benefit to the courts and the public,” said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which conducted a recent survey on electronic access.

In California, the Judicial Council approved statewide rules in 2001 that allowed county courts, at their discretion, to provide broad electronic access to most civil records, but restricted remote Internet access in criminal, family, mental health and other cases that might contain sensitive information.

The council also approved an interim rule in February that allowed courts to provide Internet access to records in some high-profile criminal cases.

In an effort to balance privacy concerns and public access, personal information such as telephone numbers and psychiatric records of defendants, victims and possible witnesses must be removed. That rule will expire at the end of the year, and the court is working on a permanent rule.

Orange County Superior Court became a pioneer in online access when it started a website in 1996 with basic information such as contact numbers and court locations. The Internet site become a model for some other counties. Now the site offers many services, including the option for attorneys in complex civil cases to file documents electronically.

“At that point in time it was a rather limited access,” said Richard Droll, chief technology officer for the Orange County court. “Today, what we are doing is just leaps and bounds beyond that.”

The Internet services offered in Los Angeles seem to be popular. There have been 285,000 criminal name searches conducted electronically since the service started eight months ago. There also have been 20,000 civil case downloads in the five months that the option has been available. The only civil cases available online are those in the Central District, which make up nearly 40% of all of L.A. County’s civil filings.

The court charges $4.75 for the first criminal name search, but the cost drops if the user is searching hundreds or thousands of names. It costs $7.50 for each civil case document downloaded (up to 10 pages).

The court has already earned $1.5 million, which pays for the costs of offering and maintaining online services. Some say that any costs, however, place a burden on court users who cannot afford to pay.

To get word out about the new electronic options, court officials have sent letters to vendors and put up posters and left brochures at courthouses.

The website has also been revamped with a special section labeled “LA e Court Online,” with tabs for various services.

One regular user of the criminal name search is InfoLink, a background screening company based in Chatsworth. Vice President Marjorie Carpenter said the criminal name search section of the Los Angeles website is thorough and up to date, offering the same information available at the courthouse.

Carpenter said the online system saves court runners a trip to the courthouse and allows them to do searches any time.

At first, company officials feared that online access would take away their business because the clients that hired them to do background searches could do the checks themselves. But that has not happened.

“We haven’t really lost any business,” Carpenter said. “They are paying us for our expertise in looking for the information and knowing how to report it and knowing how to use it.”

The Judicial Council plans to survey the courts around California late this summer to determine their progress in electronic court access.