Recommendation Report For Family Law Technology Improvement 

The paperless office is a work environment in which the use of paper is eliminated or greatly reduced. This is done by converting paper documents and other court-related material into electronic format. While a 100% paperless office is unattainable in the District Court, processes can be applied over time to reduce paper when the opportunities are available. Benefits of paper reduction/usage can save money, boost productivity and keep information better secure.

Purpose

This document provides recommendations only for converting paper CCI reports produced in family law into electronic format. The planning of storage and processing of documents, also defining the roles of personnel responsible for electronic conversion and maintenance for the District Court.

Benefits

In a paperless/reduced paper environment, you can easily store documents in electronic format on the District Court secured network storage, thus eliminating physical files. These are some of the benefits of the CCI report converted into electronic format:

• Reduced footprint thus increasing physical space for another usage
• Secure and control access to CCI reports
• Ease of availability for Court personnel (Judge and Administrative Assistant)
• Reliable backup and data retention of CCI reports
• Less temporary paper
• Reduce the cost of stored CCI paper reports

File Structure and Storage

Once the decision is made to convert CCI reports into electronic format, a decision will need to be made on how to file structure will be designed to accommodate the electronic documents converted. I recommend using the file structure model the Dispute Resolution Coordinator (Liz Armstrong) for family law uses. Dispute Resolution Coordinator scans ADR case files which are similar to CCI reports for Family Law electronic format. The conversion was implemented six years ago and is still being utilized today for scanning ADRs. Folders will be stored on the Family Law shared drive Labeled by Division Of the Family Law Judge. I recommend the following format structure for the files being stored as follows:

• Named Division folder on Family Law shared drive
• Inside named Division folder structure; folder labeled with the case number (for example 18DM00001 on the folder tab)
• Inside case number subfolder structure; contains two folders one named Full CCI report and the other named Recommendation
• Completed CCI reports including recommendations by CCI investigator will be scanned into the “Full CCI Report”
• The recommendation report completed by the CCI investigator portion can be copied or scanned first into the “Recommendation” folder. The CCI recommendation from the Investigator must be separated because this information can be made available to the Pro Se client ( read-only). Only Judges, Judge’s Aides and (Attorneys under supervision by AA can only view full report read-only).

**Note** DCIT is responsible for the security and the backup of all files stored on the network shares.

Organisation Planning

After identifying how CCI reports permanently saved is important to define key personnel roles. All personnel roles must be properly defined. Staffs who are responsible for maintaining a file structure, train other staff members on using file structures and who will scan documents will be identified. Recommendations roles identified by the following:

• Judges - full access: no scanning required
• Administrative Aide’s - full access: scanning shared folder
• Option - CCI investigator full access: option for scanning
• Option – Family Law Clerk ( role to be determined if any)
• Attorney – read-only access to full CCI report ( viewed on a District Court non-networked device)
• Pro Se client – read-only access to recommendation portion of the report ( viewed on a District Court non-networked device)

**Note**Recommended option to have the Administrative Aide’s scan all CCI reports that were ordered by their Judge in the Division.

Reason - The completed and finalized CCI report will reside in the office of the Family Law Judge who ordered the report.

Identifying Hardware and Software

In terms of hardware needs, it is recommended that significant disk space is made available. DCIT can accommodate this recommendation for storage and future growth CCI reports converted into electronic format. Depending on scanning needs, the type of a number of scans required will have to be determined. The District Court has the following scanners and types available:

• Canon Large capacity copiers (2) located on the fourth floor
• Multifunction copier printer and scanners located in the Administrative Aide’s
• Fujitsu or Canon desktop scanners (**note**additional purchases may be necessary)

The recommendation that accommodates this project is the desktop scanners Fujitsu or Canon (used in traffic to scan high volume in tickets). Also, this type of scanner is used by the Dispute Resolution Coordinator. (For the last two years)

Security Planning

After identifying who will have access to the stored CCI documents, the District Court information Technology Department provide security measures for the document protection. The DCIT provides confidentiality of protecting against unauthorized entries through our resources such as routers, firewalls, antivirus software and password access to protect our users and our information. The steps are taken to ensure that documents stored electronically cannot be inadvertently modified or destroyed.

Implementation

After the structure, personnel roles, requirements in terms of storage, hardware and software have been identified. CCI report conversion into electronic format is ready to implement. It is recommended to implement a paperless/paper reduction solution in a single department or small group of departments first. This will limit any issues encountered and allow for refinement the processes implemented. With the Dispute Resolution Coordinator’s conversion of ADR case files into electronic format been successful for the last six years it is the ideal model to follow.