Getting civil court documents in Harris County is as easy as clicking your computer mouse.
Harris County District Clerk Loren Jackson has revamped the document request process by creating an online database of civil court documents in Harris County.
"Why not Harris County?" Jackson said. "We are the biggest county in Texas and third-biggest county in the United States. Why shouldn't you be able to get court documents from an online database?"
Jackson felt it was important for everyone, not just news media or lawyers, to have access to the documents that pass through his office. Jackson remembers the time and money it cost him to travel to downtown Houston to look through court records when he was a practicing attorney.
"There is no reason that someone living out of state or out of the country should have a disadvantage when it comes to looking at court records kept here in Harris County," Jackson said. "Now, anyone can look at the documents the same business day they are filed with our office from the comfort of their home at any time of day."
Any petition filed and processed in the Harris County civil courts before 5 p.m. is posted on the same day to the database, which was launched in August.
Although Jackson said his office has received lots of praise for the online database, there is still more that can be done.
His current plea to judges across the county is to mandate e-filing for lawyers. E-filing would eliminate the need for Jackson's office to scan and image court documents into the system. Instead, the lawyer would submit the document online to the district clerk's office, which would verify the information and make it available to the public in the database in short order.
Not only would documents be available more quickly, but it would save Harris County a lot of money, Jackson said. According to an internal cost-study by Jackson's office, e-filing would have saved the county more than $700,000 last year in processing costs.
Mixed in with the praise Jackson has been receiving for transparency is a recent lawsuit filed against Jackson and Deputy Clerk Wes McCoy by Courthouse News Service.
Texas Watchdog previously reported:
The case filed by the San Francisco-based legal journal accuses Jackson and McCoy of violating its civil rights by obstructing its ability to get immediate access to new case filings. In its complaint filed in U.S. District Court last summer, CNS charges that the defendants are "scooping" them.
From the lawsuit:
[The clerk's office] indicated they are in the process of implementing a new system of electronic scanning of new court filings, but instead of this new procedure expediting access to court filings, the opposite is true. ... [The news service] must wait anywhere from two to five days to access the vast majority of new petitions.
In an interview with Texas Watchdog, Jackson said his office had curbed access to Courthouse News Service following a county auditor's recommendation that non-employees should not be allowed access behind the office counters and in areas where cash was stored.
"This company used to be able to come down, behind the secure areas, behind the counters, and essentially just pull anything off of a clerk's desk," Jackson said. The county auditor recommended in October 2008 that only district clerk employees and sworn deputies should be permitted in certain areas of the office.
"Obviously, the company was not happy with not being able to come back behind the counters and grab things anymore."
The case was settled by the county agreeing to pay $253,000.
Contact Lynn Walsh at 713-228-2850 or lynn@texaswatchdog.org.
|
|
Comments
RSS feed
StumbleUpon
Twitter
Newsvine
Facebook
Digg
De.licio.us
YouTube
