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Education Session Article

This article was written in support of a presentation given at CTC4 in 1994.

Electronic Filing of Case File Documents

By Alan Asay

Litigating and adjudicating are thoroughly documented processes; even oral proceedings are transcribed or captured into a transcribable form so that the written record will not be incomplete. The case file containing the stream of documents accumulated by a court's clerical staff for a given case is the primary repository of all information used to litigate and adjudicate the parties' dispute--in fact, it is the very medium of litigating and adjudicating.

Although case files are the informational focal point of the adjudication process, information technology has largely ignored them. Copy machines have replaced copyists, and word processors have replaced typewriters, which had earlier replaced quills; however, the primary functions of retaining, controlling custody, locating, appending, retrieving, searching, cross-referencing, and archiving are manual processes. Many benefits await courts willing to apply information technology to case files and integrate them into a full-featured judicial information workbench.

Utah has developed an information system that automatically (1) receives signed case file documents via electronic mail, (2) checks each such document for conformity to court requirements, (3) updates the court database with data extracted from the document, (4) adds the document to an electronic case file, and (5) responds with a return mail message to the sender reporting the actions taken. The electronic case file includes automatic links to legal research materials and is available on-line for reading, word- or phrase-searching, copying, printing, and annotating¹, without altering the original. Since Utah's electronic case files and court database employ a client-server architecture, they are both readily accessible from such remote locations as a lawyer's desktop.

This paper describes the reasons for electronic filing and overviews the basic design options underlying the Utah system. The system is on display at CTC4², and another paper³ describes in greater detail the system's objectives, design, functionality, and operation, as well as opportunities for enhancing companion information systems.

Why File Electronically?

Electronic filing of case documents offers the following potential advantages:

Computers can move documents into court faster, less expensively, and with greater security than paper carrying systems such as the Postal Service or couriers, if privacy-enhanced mail⁴ and automatic reporting are used.
Computers are faster and less expensive than humans for doing the step-and-fetch work of document retrieval, including branching by references from one document to others and from them to still others, whether documents are in the same or another case file or legal research materials. Computer programs for displaying text often include hypertext functions enabling a reader to point a mouse at a citation, tap the mouse button, and look up the citation. These capabilities save the time and effort of pulling paper files or volumes off shelves, flipping pages, and replacing the files or volumes.
Computers search out relevant passages better in situations where no citation points the way. Searching by computer for words or phrases has become a widely accepted technique for locating the critical "needle in a haystack" of text.
Computers copy information easily and rapidly. As a result, they greatly reduce the bother of tracking paper file custody and coping with lost case files. When a case is appealed, an exact copy of the trial court record can easily be sent to the appellate court while leaving the original in the trial court -- an important point in judicial systems in which the trial court retains jurisdiction over a case on appeal.
Computers communicate well with each other which enables document retrieval and copying from remote locations. Remote access to the court's official case file greatly benefits lawyers; an inexpensive, mass-marketed communications link can bring a court's case files onto a lawyer's desktop.
Computerized documents require less physical space to store than paper.
Computer-readable documents can interact with other computer-based systems. For example, a document giving notice of an upcoming hearing could interact with computerized calendaring software. The filing of documents is often tracked in a database. In particular, documents initiating a criminal or divorce case are often packed with data gathered for demographic or criminal history purposes. In electronic form, documents transfer data into a database without the errors, high costs, and time lags associated with human data entry.

In designing their electronic filing system, the Utah courts evaluated the following varying technological approaches for processing case files in an attempt to realize the foregoing objectives.

Core Document/Data Technology

The most likely possibilities for processing an electronically filed document and the data it contains are as follows:

Imaging consists of making a computerized picture of a document using a scanner known as an electronic photocopier. Imaging's main advantages are its easy implementation and its similarity to the familiar world of paper⁵. The disadvantages of imaging include its high demands on system resources, the limited utility of imaged information (word searches and database updates are problematic or impossible, for example), and the difficulty and expense involved in moving the large files that result from imaging⁶.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)⁷ consists of sending strictly formatted data from one database to another via computer. EDI works well for database information, but it leaves some needs unaddressed, mainly because it provides no means of processing documents as such. Documents can travel with EDI messages, but processing the document in any meaningful way is outside the scope of EDI, leaving the primary source of court information unintegrated⁸. In essence, EDI simply transfers from court clerk to the filing party the responsibility for manually extracting data from the controlling document. EDI thus falls short of eliminating the inevitable quality control problems of manual data entry and the conformance of the database to the case file.
Ordinary word processors. Documents can also be received in the format of the word processor in which they were created, but converting the proprietary, highly idiosyncratic formats of word processors into the format expected by the case file presentation software is difficult. Moreover, word processor formats, like EDI formats, also include no reliable means of identifying and extracting data for a database or for incorporating or deriving hypertext links. They also change rapidly without notice or opportunity for comment.
Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)⁹ is a way of marking the contents of a document for use by a database, text presentation software such as Folio Views or Adobe Acrobat, and other information systems. SGML can also assure that certain elements of the document are present. SGML is an excellent way of processing text and any data embedded in textual information, but it requires know-how to implement and requires filing parties to tag document contents before filing¹⁰. Moreover, since an SGML program scans through a document sequentially, it bogs down in processing large graphics embedded in a document; for SGML, large graphics and multimedia files are better implemented as external files referenced within the SGML document¹¹.

The Utah courts selected SGML as their core technology for processing an electronic document and the data within it. To develop SGML know-how the author read a couple of books on SGML¹², and the courts retained consultants for a total of $4,000 in fees¹³.

Core Document Transmission Technology

Both EDI and SGML are compatible with the Simple Mail Transport Protocol¹⁴ and other common electronic mail standards. They are a mature, well-known, and easily (if not already) implemented technology for sending messages over a variety of media. Electronic mail also handles addressing, access to outside systems, misdirected messages, and system crashes. Alternatives to electronic mail such as direct file transfer into a court computer, tend to be user-unfriendly, risky for system security, and less automatic.

Privacy-enhanced mail¹⁵ standards add signature capabilities to ordinary e-mail systems, enable the recipient to assure confidentiality and prevent tampering en route, and prevent the sender from disavowing the document once sent.

Conclusion

Electronic case files are no longer a pipe dream; technology for automating case files is available, mature, and inexpensive¹⁶ for a modern information system. There are compelling reasons to automate the processes of inputting documents into the case files and the court database, and to use computer-assisted case files. The Utah courts have realized their objectives using standard privacy-enhanced electronic mail, commercial SGML software (specifically Omnimark from Exoterica, Inc.), and SGML-friendly text indexing and presentation software (Views 3.1 and companion products from Folio Corporation).

Endnotes

¹ As used in this paper, "annotating" means the process of highlighting portions of text, making notes and comments in reading the text, adding user-defined cross-references, etc.

² The author acknowledges the following for making their software products available without cost for use at the demonstration:

Informix, database software, from Informix, Inc.
Intellitag 1.2, and SGML word processor, from WordPerfect Corporation
Omnimark, SGML parsing and text processing software, from Exoterica, Inc.
Pegasus Mail, electronic mail software, from David Harris
Views 3.1 and VIP, text indexing, displaying, searching, and hypertext from Folio Corporation
Utah Law on Disc, legal research resources, The Michie Company

Product information from these vendors will be available at the display.

³ Asay, Electronic Filing of Case File Documents in Utah Courts (1994). This article has been submitted for publication in a legal periodical; meanwhile, copies are available by request from the Utah courts, (801) 578-3939, or alana@courtlink.utcourts.gov, or download from courtlink.utcourts.gov after logging in as "public"

⁴ Privacy-enhanced mail is a standard adopted by the Internet Architecture Board in RFC 1421 through 1424 (1993).

⁵ Although electronic filing is likely to become the preferred method of filing documents in courts, mandating it would increase the burdens of litigants who lack word-processing and electronic mail capabilities. To avoid limiting recourse to the courts, paper filing must continue to be available.

The Utah courts plan to continue to accept paper filings and to image them into a single electronic case file. Since e-mail SGML filing will be faster, easier, and more accurate than taking paper to court, litigants have an incentive to file electronically rather than on paper.

⁶ Using PostScript (TM), a well-known page description language, has similar problems of bulk, rather heavy processing demands, ignorance of content, and limited utility. The limited utility of page description languages stems from the fact that they describe appearance rather than content while features such as hypertext and data extraction are content-specific. The Utah courts' approach to electronic filing favors identifying content rather than format or appearance, then deriving the format for output to companion applications (such as a database, on-line presentation software, and future applications) from the content rather than the appearance of the document on paper.

⁷ EDI technology is standardized within the United States as X.12 of the American National Standards Institute.

⁸ The accompanying document can be formatted in some way, or it could be SGML document as described later. However, if SGML is used for the document, SGML might as well handle the data in the document as well as its textual content, since it is perfectly capable of doing both. Using SGML for both data and text avoids the complexity and expense of a redundant system for data manually extracted from the document.

⁹ SGML is standard 8879 of the International Standards Organization, and was developed in 1980 and finally adopted in 1986. It has since been amended once and supplemented by standards covering document exchange and multimedia.

¹⁰ SGML markup consists of "tagging" portions of text as specified by the court in a "document type definition." For example, to identify the title of a document, it is tagged in the Utah system like this:

<Title>Motion for Partial Summary Judgment</Title>

Many software publishers sell products to facilitate or automate markup, or an ordinary word processor can be used. SGML markup software is available from WordPerfect, Lotus, Microsoft (scheduled for release in 1994 but not available at press deadline), and about a dozen others. Much of the tagging can be automated using either SGML software or the style and macro features of most word processors.

¹¹ The SGML standard provides several ways of handling single-frame images. ISO standard integrates multimedia information into the SGML model using additional ISO standards such as JPEG, MPEG, etc.

¹² E. van Herwijnen, PRACTICAL SGML (1990), ISBN 0-7923-0635-X; M. Bryan, SGML: AN AUTHOR'S GUIDE TO THE STANDARD GENERALIZED MARKUP LANGUAGE (1988), ISBN 0-201-17535-5.

¹³ The consultants were Bob Heavill and Jennifer Botts from Exoterica, Inc., Columbus, Ohio.

¹⁴ RFC 822 of the Internet Activities Board.

¹⁵ RFC 1421-24 of the Internet Activities Board.

¹⁶ The system cost about $75,000 and took about a year to develop from scratch. Other, similar systems were not available for comparison or to serve as models.

Biographical Information

This biographical information may date from as far back as 1994. Please keep in mind that it may no longer be accurate.

Alan Asay

Alan Asay works for the Utah Administrative Office of the Courts in its Information Technology Division. Initially assisting in the Utah courts' conversion to open (Unix and DOS/Windows) information, Mr. Asay served as principal developer of Utah's system for electronically filing court documents. Currently, he is the reporter for the Information Security Committee of the American Bar Association's Science and Technology Section, a committee formulating model rules and an institutional infrastructure for digital signatures on electronic documents. He is also a member of the ABA's Judicial Electronic Document and Data Interchange Committee. Before joining the administrative office, Mr. Asay was in private practice for eight years, specializing in local government law and litigation, and served as a research attorney for the Utah Court of Appeals.

Mr. Asay graduated from Brigham Young University Law School in 1982.

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