E-Filing Planned for Philadelphia

Municipal Court Goal is `Paperless Courtroom'

By Ruth Bryna Cohen
Of the Legal Staff

The Philadelphia county municipal court will soon accept case filing via the Internet. An ongoing pilot program which began in January is testing the e-filing concept, and so far, it has gone well, according to Glenn S. Bozzacco, deputy court administrator of Philadelphia municipal court. Administrative Judge Robert S. Blasi spearheaded the project, he said.

The initiative for e-filing came to the court sooner than Blasi and Bozzacco expected. "Originally, we just had plans to bring in computers and move to word processing. We were still typing up forms on typewriters," said Bozzacco, who is serving as director of the project.

"After that, we planned to do automated case management and then move to a paperless courtroom. Only then were we going to look into e-filing," he said.

But those plans were speeded up a few notches after some consultation, he said. "We spoke to Verilaw and found out they could take us right to e-filing and also provide all of the other services. We didn't need to go in those smaller stages."

On Wednesday, the court will be running a full trial list of cases, all of which were filed using the current test system. Bozzacco said he is thrilled at the progress of the project so far.

"Eventually we will have case listing, trial scheduling and filing through the Internet," said Bozzacco. "In the current program, judges are also able to enter the disposition of a case directly into the computer." The final goal will be total case management, he said.

"We want to do data conversion from the city's electronic database into the court management system here, ultimately," he said.

Municipal Court Benefits

Bozzacco said the municipal court really benefits from e-filing not only because it is the fourth largest filing district in the country -- accepting 160,000 filings annually -- but also because the forms aren't very complex. "We don't have docket entries that are as complicated as other courts," he said.

"It was easier for us to do this project than other courts, because we didn't have a complicated system in the first place," Bozzacco said. "So there wasn't a huge system in existence to convert from."

About 80 percent of the cases that come to municipal court are bulk filings, Bozzacco said, which are well-suited to e-filing, since they are simple and there are many of them. Usually, bulk filers are credit card companies or collection agencies, who have a lot of cases to file at once.

The total court management system works well for bulk filers, Bozzacco said.

"Many of those end up as default judgments," he added, "like when VISA sues 20 or 30 people who have defaulted on their credit cards; many of them don't show up in court, because they know they owe the debt. So from our end, that's just a lot of paper moving back and forth. If it's all automated, it's much more efficient."

Pilot Program

The Municipal Court Automation Project is the name of the current pilot program. But it's just a working title. "There's a name we're floating out there, but it's not to be used yet," he said.

At the beginning of the project, Bozzacco's office sent about 30 letters out to Philadelphia attorneys who are bulk filers, asking if they would like to participate in the pilot e-filing program. About seven said yes, he said.

The attorneys log on to the Internet to a specified Web site and are walked through the filing process, said Bozzacco.

"When one of the test filings comes in from an attorney participating in the program, it waits in a queue, a prothonotary looks at it, and if it's approved, it's assigned a number," he said.

The court isn't quite paperless just yet. Attorneys still send in paper copies in addition to e-filing to make sure all cases are filed and none slip through the cracks. The court maintains a dual filing system for the time being, Bozzacco said.

Verilaw

The Web site was set up by Verilaw Technologies Inc. of Paoli. Blasi, Bozzacco and Project Manager Maria Criniti met with Verilaw in January, and the first case was filed in mid-April.

"We liked Verilaw because they worked at a very fast pace to get this off the ground," said Bozzacco. "They are also attorneys and had a good sense of what our needs were.

"Most companies we talked to wanted to give us a `one size fits all' program," said Bozzacco. "Verilaw designed one to fit our needs, which was important."

While Allegheny county has its own automated filing system called www.techi.com, Bozzacco said neither he nor Judge Blasi looked to duplicate their system.

"Their software cost $450,000, and there were some problems with it when we saw a demonstration," he said. "Overall, it was impressive, but it's still in testing now." He said he doesn't know what the final cost of the Verilaw software will be.

"For now, they are providing the service for free to us," he said. "We will be negotiating with them as we get further along in the project."

There is no definite target date that municipal court e-filing will be open to all attorneys, but Bozzacco estimated it should be up and running by this fall.

For more information contact:

Joseph A. Helfrich, Esq.
Vice President
Verilaw Technologies, Inc
35 Chestnut Road
Paoli, PA 19301
610-296-7052 (phone)
610-296-7473 (fax)
joe.helfrich@verilaw.com