Paperless Productivity

Kate Storey:                       Welcome to the Paperless Productivity Podcast, where we give you the tips, tricks and know how to solve your biggest workflow challenges, and bring greater productivity into your workplace every day. If you work in the justice community, the term paperless is likely to fill you with one of two emotions, relief because you realize the freedom and efficiency that you will experience as a result, or dread because it means things are about to change. If that second emotion is more relatable, it’s okay. You’re not alone.

But as our world becomes ever more connected, it’s time to take a good look at what it’s really like to digitize today’s court processes and see that perhaps there’s some big advantages to a paperless court, for you, your staff, and your constituents. To borrow a phrase, there’s nothing to fear but paper itself. To help put those jitters to rest once and for all, today we’re walking through the process with someone who knows the path to a paperless court inside and out. Brad Smith is the senior justice consultant for ImageSoft, and he’s helped courts of all sizes and complexities transform from a paper based nightmare into a digital dream. Thanks for joining us on the podcast today, Brad.

Brad Smith:                         Thanks, Kate.

Kate Storey:                       Okay. Let’s say that there’s a spark of interest within a court in going digital. What do you think is the first thing that court needs to do when starting that path to paperless?

Brad Smith:                         Well, I think it really begins with the stakeholders in the courts market. And the courts market is larger than we all think. I think sometimes they think it’s just the court. But in that stakeholders, there’s the clerks. There’s certainly the judges in the court. There’s the prosecuting attorneys. There’s the sheriff. State and local agencies, for example, probation departments, the jail. You have other particular departments that currently are in the paper world, there’s a lot of workflow. But you’re finding people that are starting to at least wanting to do electronic filing. So once you start the electronic filing, or if the clerk has started to scan, we have an electronic document that needs to be sent to these other departments, and we’re really trying to make sure that everyone is on the same page when we’re going to do this process.

Kate Storey:                       Yeah. I imagine it’s kind of hard to get everything into a seamless process if you don’t have everyone on board.

Brad Smith:                         That is true. First of all, you’ve got the clerks. And they’re excited about … Maybe not exciting, but they’re scanning. They’re taking documents electronically. Electronic filing started back in 1990 with Lexis Nexis. That was a project that started with CLAD, complex litigated automated docket. They were doing it, so that’s great for the attorneys. The attorneys are electronically filing. And what’s ironic, if you even look at today’s eco structure, paralegal, legal assistant, the attorneys, they create the document electronically. They convert it to paper, so they can bring it on over to the clerk’s office, so they can scan it and then put it in a paper folder. And then they’re taking that paper folder, then delivering it on to the judge. And so just by the very nature, what we like to say at ImageSoft, if it starts electronic, let’s keep it electronic.

Kate Storey:                       Absolutely. It just seems to make more sense, and to make it just all flow a little bit better. Okay. We’ve opened the door with these officials. And they’re starting to take a serious look at how their court would operate in this new process.

Kate Storey:                       Welcome to The Paperless Productivity Podcast, where we give you the tips, tricks, and know-how to solve your biggest workflow challenges, and bring greater productivity into your workplace everyday.

Every year, eCourts is one of the justice community’s most highly anticipated events. It’s where some of the biggest topics, challenges, and solutions are discussed with those leading the way and shaping the modern court. Today, we’re so excited to be joined by Jesse Rutledge, the Vice President of External Affairs for the National Center for State Courts, which hosts eCourts.

Welcome to today’s podcast, Jesse.

Jesse Rutledge:                 I’m glad to be here.

Kate Storey:                       Great. Now I also want to mention that Jesse is no stranger to the podcast scene, as he is the host of the NCSC’s own podcast, “Court Talk.” Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Jesse Rutledge:                 Yeah, I’d love to. It’s something that we started about, 3-ish years ago, maybe a little under three years ago, when we were sitting around the table thinking how could we better communicate out to the court community and to our audience, and sort of following on the heels of the popularity of the serial podcast, we started to think about whether we had the kind of material and the time and the resources to create our own. So, we gave it a shot, and three years later we are putting them out, about once a month or so. It’s a great opportunity for us to talk to people who maybe work for the National Center and want to talk about a project that they are wrapping up, or we’ve had great conversations with some judges about issues that they’re seeing in the administration of justice. We’ve talked to members of the media and lots of others, so we have kind of a diverse set of guests and so far, I think it’s going pretty well. We came in with modest expectations, and I think those have been met and hopefully exceeded.

Kate Storey:                       Absolutely. There’s no shortage of topics to cover is there?

Jesse Rutledge:                 No. There are not. There are too many things for us to talk about and not enough time.

Kate Storey:                       Absolutely. Well we’re certainly excited to have you on the other side of the microphone today.

I’m also happy to welcome Brad Smith, the Senior Justice Consultant for ImageSoft, who has been a regular fixture at eCourts, is going to take us through today’s conversation with Jesse.

Hi Brad.

Brad Smith:                         Hi Kate, how are you?

Kate Storey:                       Good, how are you?

Brad Smith:                         Good. As you mentioned, eCourts and CTC’s some of the highlight events that all of the vendors in the community really look forward to…Been meeting Jesse for years, now. And so I’m really excited that Jesse can join us for today’s telecast.

Kate Storey:                       Absolutely.

Brad Smith:                         Okay, hey Jesse, and again, thank you once again for getting with us. I have found recently, going to different events, different clerk conferences, different judges conferences, there’s a lot of new individuals that are coming to the courts community. For example, in Tennessee, there was 31 different court clerks out of the 95. So, how do you, at the National Center for State Courts explain some of the differences between eCourts, which is in Vegas and the CTC conference?

Jesse Rutledge:                 Well, that’s a great place to begin, Brad.

I guess there’s a couple ways that we approach it here. There are some structural differences that kind of set them apart. So for one thing, the Court Technology Conference,

Kate Storey:                       Welcome to the paperless productivity podcast, where we give you the tips, tricks, and know how, to solve your biggest workflow challenges, and bring greater productivity into your workplace everyday.

Technology has become such a standard part of so many of our lives. Sometimes it can be hard to remember a time without it. In fact, for today’s children, they have never known a time without it. Toddlers are swiping through nursery rhyme apps and iPads as easily as they’re flipping through pop up books. Going digital has benefited our lives in many different ways personally and professionally. And today we’re talking with Kevin Ledgister, image soft marketing manager, to count through the many forms of technology that we’re so very thankful for.

Kevin, it’s good to talk with you today.

Kevin Ledgister:                Yes. It’s great to be back.

Kate Storey:                       Great. Well tell me, so what are some of the areas of your life where you have seen a big improvement thanks to technology?

Kevin Ledgister:                Well, before I get into that, I’m going to tell you this little story. One of the first movies that I ever went to with my wife was The Hunt for Red October. And for those of you who are movie buffs and I’ve seen this movie back in the eighties, there was this great scene in there where the captain who is played by Sean Connery and his first officer, Sam Kneeler are in the captain’s quarters, and they’re actually defecting to United States and they’re dreaming about life, what it’s like in United States.

And the first officer tell of his one of the things on his bucket list, which is he wants to buy this RV and go from state to state. And that was his big dream and he looks at this company and says; “So I can go from state to state with no papers? Meeting identification not required? Like in every state as it was in the old Soviet Union?”

And the first … And the captain said; “No papers.” And I thought that was kind of interesting. And that line for whatever reason is always stuck out to me is this whole question of no papers and really living free. But it was kind of almost prophetic in terms of where we are today. And one of the things I’m very thankful for as being someone that travels quite a bit for my job, is the fact that I no longer had to deal with paper as I’m traveling, especially when it comes to by Air.

And you think about this, it used to be that, we have to have paper tickets, and we have to go up to the ticket counter, and have them print off a boarding passes for us, and we had to go through that whole rigamarole which just took up and ate up so much time, and now we’re doing all this stuff with mobile apps and check ins and if for some reason that you don’t like the seat that you got, you can just go right on your phone … Smartphone and change your seats or … Now with the system that we use in our company, One the great things is, when I book a reservation, it automatically sends me an outlook invite, that goes right on my counters, got my itinerary attached, so I get automatic reminders and it’s just such an automated process.

I used to work for another company where I was … When I started with the company and they said, “Get ready for your road warrior days.” And this is of course is back in the early 2000s. And they told me and says, “You’re going to get to the point where you’re going to show up at the ticket counter.” And the gate agent is going to ask you, “Where are you going today”, so they could verify the print off your boarding pass, and you’re going to draw a complete blank.

And I said; “There’s no way that that would ever happen.” And sure enough,

Therese Murphy:

My name is Therese Murphy. I’m the manager of Yakima County District Court. I’ve been managing the court since about 2011. My background actually is as a lawyer. I’ve been a practicing since 2001 primarily in the area of criminal law working as a prosecuting attorney in various counties in the state of Washington. I left that line of work and came to work for the district court judges here in Yakima in 2011. I also happen to be a judge in a small city in the Lower Valley in Yakima County as well.

I’m here to tell you a little bit about Yakima County’s experience with the OnBase solution as well as the TrueFiling solution, both of which have been deployed in our county, in our court I should say, since mid-2016. Just a little bit about Yakima County, we are the second largest county by land mass in the state of Washington. There are 39 total in our state. We have a population of just under 250,000 people. The largest city is Yakima. That is where I am sitting today, in Yakima, the city of Yakima. As far as employment is concerned, primarily agricultural, health services, and local government. One of our claims to fame here in Yakima, in particular the area I live in, which is Moxee right outside of Yakima, is that we produce 75% of the hops made in the United States for beer and nearly almost the entire world. We are very rich in alcohol production here in Yakima County. A lot of great wineries and craft beer operations working in our community.

Yakima County District Court is actually a Court of Limited Jurisdiction. We not only accept cases filed by the county itself, but we also contract with several municipalities in our county to provide court services, namely Union Gap, Mabton and Grand View are the ones that we’re contracting with right now. My responsibility as part of Yakima District Court is not just the clerk’s office, but also the Adult Probation Services Department and Pretrial Services. We have five judicial officers, four elected judges, and one commissioner. 43 staff among all of our departments. We have two locations. One in Yakima and one in Grand View. A Court of Limited Jurisdiction in our state is just that. We are limited in the things that we can hear. Primarily infractions, minor criminal defense, which are defined as anything that has a jail sentence of 364 days or less, civil suits, seeking damages in a value less than $100,000, small claims less than 5,000, name changes, and anti-harassment stalking protection orders are the types of things that our judges preside over.

All right. As I indicated, we have two locations in our county. They are 41 miles apart. The picture there is one of my judicial officers, Judge Sanderson. That isn’t his real car. It wishes it was his real car, but it’s not. He does really drive that way, such that a stop sign would be crashed to the ground. He would deny it, but I don’t agree. Nonetheless, I am in Yakima, which is the picture of the main courthouse at the top of the slide. Then we have a smaller operation down in Grand View 41 miles away.

I want to talk a little bit about the court system in Washington because I know every state differs in the way that it’s structured. I want to talk about it in the context of the number of cases that are heard, which will become relevant as we proceed further along in this presentation. We have the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. Those are our reviewing courts in our state. The courts of limited jurisdiction and the Superior Courts, those are trial courts. Those are the courts that decide the dispute. The Court of Appeals and Supreme Court review the decisions of those lower courts. Actually, in some respects, Superior Court is also and oftentimes is a court of review of Courts of Limited Jurisdiction cases as well. In a minor aspect of their role, they do serve also as an appellate court.

Kate:                     Welcome to the Paperless Productivity Podcast where we give you the tips, tricks and know-how to solve your biggest workflow challenges and bring greater productivity into your workplace every day.

Welcome to this week’s episode and if you’re in the court space, then this episode is for you. So many courts are trying to find ways to be more efficient without ripping out all of their old systems. Trying to find technology that’s going to work for them, to help them to manage their caseload and to address the changing needs of today’s modern courts, but without having to go through a major strategy and major technology overhaul.

So today, we’re going to be talking about the component model and the National Center for State Courts and Community Live and how all of these things are all converging together. Kevin Ledgister of ImageSoft is going to be talking and taking us through this today. We will explore this in today’s episode.

Kevin L:                 All right, thank you very much Kate. First of all, let me just start off by just explaining a little bit about what the component model is that’s being promoted by the National Center for State Courts. If you’re a court listener, you may be familiar with this. You most certainly have heard about this. Maybe you were at the National Associates for Court Manager’s show or any one of the shows where you may have heard one of these things mentioned in the seminar.

The component model really came out of this whole idea in terms of just naturally seeing where courts were heading. It used to be in the olden days … Why’d I say the olden days? Really, we’re only talking a few years ago.

Kate:                     Right!

Kevin L:                 But in technology, olden days is like what happened last year.

Kate:                     Last year, yeah.

Kevin L:                 So with respect to that, it used to be that the recommendation was buy your solution from a technology vendor that can provide you the entire stack of your technology needs. So it would be a vendor that could provide you with your case management, could provide you with e-filing, could provide you with your judge interface, your e-bench solution so you would have everything right within that one package.

Well, the reality is that as courts progress and courts buy onto this, first of all they found it would be very, very expensive to do this. As a result, what happened is that a lot of courts that couldn’t afford the $1 million, $2 million or $5 million, whatever it would cost to essentially rip out their entire core of their technology to replace it with another vendor’s offering, what happened was that those courts just got stuck in time and they weren’t able to move forward in terms of implementing new features. And maybe, their case manager solution did everything they needed it to do except for one small piece of functionality that they needed. Or maybe they just needed to integrate e-filing with it so that people could electronically file. Or maybe they just needed to handle their documents through Microsoft Word and doing Word templates much more efficiently and being able to update them as opposed to programmatically going in and changing those.

So, it was just these small bits of functionality that a lot of times the courts were looking for and they couldn’t get to without ripping out the whole entire infrastructure and changing it for something new. The National Center for State Courts really looked at this and came along and updated their thought process in terms of, well instead of just trying to rip everything out and tear it all out, really what we should be promoting is this idea of being able to have interoperability between applications. So with respect to that, a court could say,

Kate:                     Welcome to the Paperless Productivity Podcast where we give you the tips, tricks and know how to solve your biggest workflow challenges and bring greater productivity into your workplace every day.

Kate:                     They’re old they’re dusty and they have the power to take down your organization in a single event. That’s right. Today we’re talking about the horror of paper based offices. Welcome to our episode for this week. I’m Kate Storey for ImageSoft which is a sponsor of this fine podcast. And today I’m joined by ImageSoft’s Marketing Manager Kevin Legister. Kevin has 17 years of experience with enterprise content management with 15 of those years spent in technical sales and development. He’s worked with everyone from Fortune 100 companies to very small organizations to help them on their journey of going paperless. So he’s gonna be a great resource for you today especially if your organization is just starting to think about digitizing your paper based processes. He’s got a lot of great examples of why paper based systems are not just inefficient, they’re downright scary. Kevin thanks for being here today.

Kevin:                   Thanks for having me Kate.

Kate:                     All right well let’s dive right in because I want to know what’s really so terrible about paper?

Kevin:                   Well I’m not a horror movie fan which might leave you with a single sleepless night but what keeps me up at night is when I walk into organizations and I see that their office is just paper driven and the reason why for that is that there’s just so many risks associated with having a paper driven office where you’re critical records are only existing in paper based form.

Kate:                     Well like what? Give me a couple of examples.

Kevin:                   Well if you have a paper based office you really don’t have any really good backup plan except to make more paper generally speaking which is kind of crazy. So if you think about it if your only copy of your file this is the one that you have in your file cabinet imagine that during this season that this Halloween season that somebody brings in some cheap Halloween funny thing that they plug in that bahaha as you walk by or something that scares the office staff and it’s got some cheap wiring in there and that wiring starts sparking when you’re not there at night and it causes a fire and the sprinklers go on and then your cabinets get flooded and your ink runs and your papers they get melded together. It just destroys all your critical records that you would have and it just becomes a terrible thing to do.

Kevin:                   So that’s sometimes what we see in terms of from a fire perspective or from a electrical hazard perspective or even a flood. This was something that was recently in the news about one government office where they experienced a flood and because that flood came it destroyed so many of their records that they have to go through this whole process to try and reconstitute or reconstruct a lot of those files. And it was quite costly for them. We talked about fires already. There’s other things I’ve seen too is people who will use offsite storage or will store their documents in really weird places. So I’ve seen documents being stored in a abandoned jail cell.

Kate:                     That’s pretty scary.

Kevin:                   Yeah it is scary. Or something that happens people will have some spot in the warehouse where they’ll store their paper based files and it may not be air conditioned, it may be susceptible to weather, it may be susceptible to believe or not rodents. Rodents will get in there and they will chew up your files and use us as nesting and you don’t know that until you actually...

Kate:                                     I think I know how your morning goes each day. You pick up your phone and right away you start checking your emails, you start looking for news that happened overnight, trying to find out all the information that you might have missed or that you want to catch up on. So you grab your phone, you start going through everything and then you get to your office, and all you see is a mound of paper sitting there waiting for you at your desk, and maybe that might be your only reminder that paper even still exists. So much of what we get from our daily lives, our news, our email, everything, comes in electronic form now, but when you’re sitting there waiting for files to come across your desk, when you’re waiting for a coworker to bring back some important piece of information, it just can’t wait for paper. You need that instant access to your work files, the way that you have that instant access to your email and to your news. What if you could combine all those things? What if you could have instant easy real time access to the things that you need every day for your work? Well guess what? You can, and that is what the Paperless Productivity Podcast is all about.

If you’re just discovering this podcast, this episode will give you all the details about what you can expect from the Paperless Productivity Podcast and how we hope you and your workplace can benefit from the information we’ll share from our team of experts and guest experts in each episode. So to kick things off, I’d like to introduce you to Kevin Ledgister who is a marketing manager for ImageSoft, the Paperless Process people.

Hello Kevin.

Kevin Ledgister:                Hi Kate. I’m excited to kick of this podcast with you.

Kate:                                     Excellent, same here. All right, so first let’s talk for just a moment about who ImageSoft is, and why it’s powering this podcast.

Kevin Ledgister:                So, ImageSoft is about a 22-year-old company and we started back in the day where everybody was just dealing with paper and the main goal at that point in time was just to get paper out of organizations so that they could access online with their computer, now it’s a great thing, [inaudible 00:02:13] computers were bursting onto the scene, everybody was getting a PC on their desktop, and that’s kind where we started, but since then we’ve kinda migrated more to this more of an automated approach, so once you take a company paperless where they’re no longer dealing with paper, what do you do then? How does your business process work? Because so many of the things that we do in our lifetime revolves around paper and once you take that out of the mix, you need to do something a little bit differently. So that’s what we’ve been about, that’s what we do, we’ve been focusing on many different industries and whether it’s in the government, or specifically the court industry, or we’ve been doing things with the insurance companies. We’ve done some things with educational firms and higher education, so we’ve worked across all different industries in terms of helping them to do paperless and to take their process paperless as well.

Kate:                                     That’s great. All right, so what’s the main drive of the Paperless Productivity Podcast? What can listeners expect to gain from the information that will be shared?

Kevin Ledgister:                So the whole idea about this podcast is so that people can gain insights into why would you wanna go paperless, what the steps involved in going paperless, what are some of the benefits of going paperless and just hearing from our customers who’ve gone down that road before, which is a great thing to hear, you can hear that somebody else has done this before,