Cass County courts are working toward increased efficiency and consistency by becoming the ninth county in the state to receive electronically filed documents.
Starting July 18, Cass County Clerk Beth Liming said lawyers will be able to file case documents via email any time of day. Her staff will receive, process and approve or deny the filings during business hours just as they would with a physical submission.
That opportunity is expected to be available for all new cases on and after July 18, Liming said, adding cases that are currently made up of paper submissions will remain that way through their duration.
Mark Leeman, a Logansport-based attorney, has been electronically filing documents for his federal and appellate-level cases for several years. He said he looks forward to being able to do so in Cass County and courts across the state as the practice spreads.
It's convenient for the late hours the profession often demands, he continued.
"It saves paper and frankly it's great to be able to file something at midnight," Leeman said.
Liming said the public won't yet be able to electronically access electronically filed case documents as judges and lawyers will. The clerk's office will print off electronically filed documents that aren't confidential upon request, she continued.
While the filings themselves aren't available online, Cass County courts list what documents have been filed at mycase.in.gov.
Physical case files that aren't confidential are available at the Cass County Clerk's Office and the county's three courts for public examination. Liming said while there are no immediate plans to recreate that for electronically filed court documents like making them available online or in a public computer at the government building, it's something she said would be worth exploring in the future.
"I think until we get to some of these points, you don't stop and think what kind of changes are going to need to be made in different areas," she said.
State officials have begun addressing that issue. Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush leads a task force that works to determine what kinds of court records should be made available online. The state supreme court granted the task force's recommendation that all briefs in non-confidential state appellate court cases be available online earlier this year.
Hamilton County courts became the first in Indiana at the county level to offer electronic filing in July 2015.
Debbie Lepere, chief deputy at the Hamilton County Clerk's Office, praised the practice.
"It just saves a lot of time and it helps us keep track of everything," Lepere said.
Kathryn Dolan, public information officer for the Indiana Supreme Court, said Indiana officials hope to have all courts across the state equipped with electronic filing by the end of 2018.