OCA Unveils Pilot Projects Expanding Internet Access to Records

By Daniel Wise

July 7, 2006


A variety of court documents in New York and Broome counties will be made available over the Internet by the end of September, Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman announced yesterday.

In addition, briefs in appeals filed in the Appellate Division, Second Department, and calendars in Family Courts throughout the state will be online starting next week.

"For the first time in its history," Judge Lippman said, "the New York state court system will make case files available on the Internet, along with court decisions and dockets."

The implementation of pilot projects in the two counties puts New York "in the forefront of state courts," said Susan Larson, a consultant for the National Center for State Courts who has been tracking efforts by state courts to make records available over the Internet.

"No state comprehensively makes court documents available in all jurisdictions and all courts, and very few jurisdictions are putting any documents online at this time," said Ms. Larson, a lawyer in South Dakota specializing in data privacy issues. Among the states where courts are making documents available online are North Carolina, California and Ohio, she added.

The federal courts have a comprehensive system for making documents available through its PACER system, though there is a charge of 8 cents a page up to a maximum of $2.40 per document.

The PACER system also requires users to register in order to get access to information in case files. Attorneys and the public generally will not be required to pay a fee or register to get online records from New York County. But in Broome County there will be both a registration requirement and a nominal fee, though the amount has yet to be set, said Ronald Younkins, director of operations for the Office of Court Administration. Mr. Younkins, together with Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Judy Harris Kluger, is overseeing the two pilot projects.

Details Vary

There are other variations in the way the two systems will work.

In New York County, pleadings, court orders and decisions in all civil cases in Supreme Court will be available, as will notices of motions and orders to show cause. However, papers offered in support of motions, such as briefs, affidavits and exhibits will not be available.

Because the court system will be scanning documents, Mr. Younkins said, the volume of cases and individual motion filings makes it impractical to make the full record of motions available at this time.

In Broome County, which is in south-central New York, where the volume of filings is much smaller, supporting papers filed with motions will be available, Mr. Younkins said. Information from criminal cases filed in Broome County Court will be available as well, he added.

Most information from criminal files will be accessible, including accusatory instruments, bail information and the names of court reporters. However, motion papers, when voluminous, will not be.

Internet access to Broome County documents will begin this summer, while records from New York County will become available in September, Mr. Younkins said.

The two pilot projects have been designed to implement the recommendations issued in 2004 by a 19-member commission, which was headed by First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams of Cahill Gordon & Reindel. Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye appointed the commission to develop ways of increasing public access to court records.

Access and Privacy

The Abrams commission had urged that court records be made available on the Internet on the day they are filed. But Mr. Younkins said that there will be a 30-day delay before a summons and complaint will be available online to make sure that a party being sued does not first learn about it through Internet disclosure. Otherwise, Mr. Younkins said, documents will be placed on the Internet "as soon as possible."

To meet privacy concerns, the Abrams commission had also urged that parties be barred from including in their filings Social Security numbers, financial account numbers, the names of minor children and birth dates.

Mr. Younkins said that procedures are being developed to insure that confidential information will be shielded from disclosure when court documents are posted. At a minimum, those procedures will protect the categories of information listed by the Abrams commission, he said.

Court officials will consult with the bar, Mr. Younkins said, and a final set of procedures for the release of documents on the Internet will be published in the Law Journal before the New York County project begins.

Family Court Calendars

By making Family Court calendars available on the Internet, the court system is significantly expanding its existing capacity, which lists Supreme Court calendars for civil cases in all 62 counties, criminal case calendars in 21 counties, including New York City, and Housing Court calendars in New York City and Erie County.

To protect confidentiality, file or docket numbers will be needed to access to Family Court calendars, rather than the parties' names.

While decisions from the Court of Appeals and the four departments of the Appellate Division have been available for some time, starting next week briefs filed in the Second Department will be available online for any appeals that have been filed since January 2004.

Trial court decisions are not uniformly available online, but about 240,000 criminal and civil decisions have been posted on the Internet since 2001 from New York City and at least 27 other counties.

In addition, under New York's "E-Courts" system the public can track court appearances in civil Supreme Court cases filed throughout the state. Through E-Courts the attorneys of record, the purpose, but not the outcome, court appearances and a variety of case management details, such as whether or not a case is ready for trial, can be ascertained.

— Daniel Wise can be reached at dwise@alm.com.