Print Version - Arizona Judicial Department

BACKGROUND
Courts are following industry’s lead to “digitize everything,” placing a focus on
Information Systems to make it easier for people to get their jobs done and done well.
As caseloads grow, so does related data entry, and, unfortunately, the harsh reality is
that clerical positions are not added at a rate anywhere near the caseload growth rate.
The solution is to increase the productivity of existing workers through technology,
taking a holistic approach to arrive at a standards-based, integrated system comprised
of various disparate parts. This path can invite creative destruction, however, wherein
the old way of doing something declines then disappears, resources are re-deployed,
institutions and people adapt, the new way grows, and overall benefits are recognized.
The problem with creative destruction is its pain for anyone involved in the old
technologies and old ways of doing things. Though courts will take an evolutionary
rather than revolutionary approach, in the midst of digitization lie some changes in the
way courts conduct business, both from the bench and in the back office.
Fundamental to increasing productivity is a mindset that views the court system as an
information supply chain -- a network of courts at all levels collectively responsible for
dispensing justice within the state. Its goal is to deliver the right information to the right
place at the right time. Because data created at or for lower courts may eventually end
up at the Supreme Court on appeal, a chain relationship exists between law
enforcement, municipal or justice courts, the superior courts, the courts of appeal, and
the Supreme Court. This supply chain considers all the individual links leading up to the
final one as essential functions within the overall value equation.
As mentioned in “Second-Generation Automation Systems,” legacy case management
systems necessitate keying and re-keying case information. Second-generation
systems will pick up information directly from law enforcement and attorneys’ systems,
reducing workload by moving the responsibility for input to the source, removing the
clerk from the tedious data entry and validation business. The new CMS forms the
foundation of the “Digitize Everything” approach, on which are layered imaging, EDMS,
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