Beware of malicious emails masquerading as messages from the Indiana Courts via GovDelivery.

We received the following notice from the Indiana Supreme Court today, and are reposting it here to make sure all of our customers see it:

We are aware of a malicious email and/or text message being circulated from Indiana state agency GovDelivery accounts, including the Indiana Courts account. We no longer use GovDelivery to send email and texts. The message contains a hyperlink that is malicious in nature; do not click it.

The Indiana Office of Technology is also aware of the issue. Phishing, spoofing, and other forms of electronic crime are common and require us to remain vigilant. Get more information from FBI.gov.

To reiterate the most important part of the message above, if you receive any messages from "GovDelivery" purporting to be from the Indiana Courts or any other Indiana State office, Do not click on any links in those messages or open any attachments. 

Amended local rules recently approved by the Indiana Supreme Court.

The local Rules for Clark, Delaware, Johnson and Hancock County Courts have been amended. 

Local attorneys are probably aware of these, but if you're an out-of-county attorney who only files into these counties periodically, it's  worth knowing that they've changed. Note that the links below include only the amendments, not the entire local set of rules, so each is a quick read to keep you up do date.

25S-MS-10

Order Approving Amended Local Rules for Clark County

25S-MS-11
Order Approving Amended Local Rules for Delaware County

25S-MS-4
Order Approving Amended Local Rules for Johnson County

25S-MS-8
Order Approving Amended Local Rule for Hancock County

Lawrence County Courts move to Odyssey. Access to court records via Doxpop unaffected.

Over the weekend of August 26th/27th, the Lawrence County Courts converted to the Odyssey case tracking system, thus moving their data storage and administration to Indianapolis. 

This move does not significantly affect Doxpop users because Doxpop buys access from the State Court Administration to a real-time feed of court data from the Odyssey system. Our customers' access to court information will not be interrupted during this transition.

A few of the services we provide will look odd during the transition because there will be a short period when both the old data and the new data are available. In particular:

• If you use the personal calendar feature to keep track of hearings connected to your Bar ID, you will see two colors for each County on your calendar. Every event will be available, but the older cases will have a different color from the newer cases. When we complete the merge process, these will go back to being a single color.
• When you look at our "County Details Page" for Lawrence County Courts you will find two entries for each court until the merge is complete.
• When you are doing searches, you will find two entries for some cases. This is because while we are loading the information from Odyssey, we will also be maintaining the old data until the operation is complete to ensure you don't miss anything. When you see two case entries, please look at both to ensure you have the most current information.
• If you use any of our "watch" services to keep an eye on cases or people of interest, we will be moving those watches over so they point to the cases and people that are a part of the Odyssey data feed. We run a process to convert these twice each day, but it is possible for notification of events to slip through the cracks between conversion runs so you may want to periodically do a manual check between now and the first week of August, after that, we'll be back to normal.

Finally, one deficiency in the Odyssey system is that financial information is not exported in their data feed, so that detail will not be available after the transition. We regularly ask that the Court Administration add this to the data feed, but so far, we are told that it is not allowed because the clerks using the Odyssey system have requested that they not make that information available to us. If this information is important to you, please encourage the clerks you work with to tell the State Court Administration of your needs so we can get the information back online.

As always, we are available to answer any questions in person, so don't hesitate to call support at 866-369-7671 if you have any questions.

Dearborn and Ohio County Courts move to Odyssey. Access to their court records through Doxpop uninterrupted.

Over the weekend of July 15th/16th, the Dearborn and Ohio County Courts converted to the Odyssey case tracking system, thus moving their data storage and administration to Indianapolis. 

This move does not significantly affect Doxpop users because Doxpop buys access from the State Court Administration to a real-time feed of court data from the Odyssey system. Our customers' access to court information will not be interrupted during this transition.

A few of the services we provide will look odd during the transition because there will be a short period when both the old data and the new data are available. In particular:

• If you use the personal calendar feature to keep track of hearings connected to your Bar ID, you will see two colors for each County on your calendar. Every event will be available, but the older cases will have a different color from the newer cases. When we complete the merge process, these will go back to being a single color.
• When you look at our "County Details Page" for Dearborn or Ohio Counties you will find two entries for each court until the merge is complete.
• When you are doing searches, you will find two entries for some cases. This is because while we are loading the information from Odyssey, we will also be maintaining the old data until the operation is complete to ensure you don't miss anything. When you see two case entries, please look at both to ensure you have the most current information.
• If you use any of our "watch" services to keep an eye on cases or people of interest, we will be moving those watches over so they point to the cases and people that are a part of the Odyssey data feed. We run a process to convert these twice each day, but it is possible for notification of events to slip through the cracks between conversion runs so you may want to periodically do a manual check between now and the first week of August, after that, we'll be back to normal.

Finally, one deficiency in the Odyssey system is that financial information is not exported in their data feed, so that detail will not be available after the transition. We regularly ask that the Court Administration add this to the data feed, but so far, we are told that it is not allowed because the clerks using the Odyssey system have requested that they not make that information available to us. If this information is important to you, please encourage the clerks you work with to tell the State Court Administration of your needs so we can get the information back online.

As always, we are available to answer any questions in person, so don't hesitate to call support at 866-369-7671 if you have any questions.

Court & E-Filing changes for 2017

A few changes to court rules and information that everyone should be aware of as we enter 2017:

1) E-Filing is now required for case initiation in Hamilton County.

Here's a refresher on how to do this in Doxpop:

Remember that when initiating a case via e-filing, you are responsible for registered mail and delivering documents to the sheriff for service. In Hamilton County, you pay the sheriff directly for service. Most Sheriff's offices require three copies.

2) Subsequent filing on civil cases only is now mandatory in Wells County.

E-filing on criminal cases is still available but optional for Wells while they work out a few kinks in the system.

3) Four new case types have been added and one has been retired.

• DR has been retired. Cases filed prior to 2017 will retain this designation, but it won't be used going forward.
• DN is the new designation for Domestic Relation (Divorce) cases not involving children.
• DC is the new designation for Domestic Relation (Divorce) cases involving children.
• TS is the new designation for an application for judgment in a tax sale.
• TP is the new designation for a verified petition to issue a tax deed.

The domestic relations types are fairly self-explanatory. The new tax sale designations are particularly helpful for abstractors and folks dealing in real estate. These used to be buried in miscellaneous civil, making them hard to search for. The new types will make life much easier for researchers looking for liens or tax deeds on real property.

4) There are no big changes to the e-filing rules. 

This isn't really a change, but it is notable that nothing in Trial Rule 86 changed. That was unexpected after the many changes we saw in 2015. This is a great sign that Indiana's system is past many of its growing pains!

5) Next up for e-filing: Washington County on 1/16, and Allen & Posey Counties on 2/16.

Give us a call if you need help preparing to e-file in these counties!

Click here to see the entire list of rule changes that took effect during 2016 or on 1/1/2017 on the State Court's web site.

Perry County Courts move to Odyssey - Your access to Perry Courts through Doxpop is unaffected.

Over the weekend of July 16/17, the Perry County Courts converted to the Odyssey case tracking system, thus moving their data storage and administration to Indianapolis. 

This move does not significantly affect Doxpop users because Doxpop buys access from the State Court Administration to a real-time feed of court data from the Odyssey system. Our customers' access to court information will not be interrupted during this transition.

A few of the services we provide will look odd during the transition because there will be a short period when both the old data and the new data are available. In particular:

• If you use the personal calendar feature to keep track of hearings connected to your Bar ID, you will see two colors for each County on your calendar. Every event will be available, but the older cases will have a different color from the newer cases. When we complete the merge process, these will go back to being a single color.
• When you look at our "County Details Page", you will find two entries for each court until the merge is complete.
• When you are doing searches, you will find two entries for some cases. This is because while we are loading the information from Odyssey, we will also be maintaining the old data until the operation is complete to ensure you don't miss anything. When you see two case entries, please look at both to ensure you have the most current information.
• If you use any of our "watch" services to keep an eye on cases or people of interest, we will be moving those watches over so they point to the cases and people that are a part of the Odyssey data feed. We run a process to convert these twice each day, but it is possible for notification of events to slip through the cracks between conversion runs so you may want to periodically do a manual check between now and the second week of August, after that, we'll be back to normal.

Finally, one deficiency in the Odyssey system is that financial information is not exported in their data feed, so that detail will not be available after the transition. We regularly ask that the Court Administration add this to the data feed, but so far, we are told that it is not allowed because the clerks using the Odyssey system have requested that they not make that information available to us. If this information is important to you, please encourage the clerks you work with to tell the State Court Administration differently so we can get the information back online.

As always, we are available to answer any questions in person, so don't hesitate to call support at 866-369-7671 if you have any questions.

'Tis Tippecanoe Tuesday!

Who says Tuesdays aren't exciting?

Today, we announce the addition of Tippecanoe County Court Case information to Doxpop's Service!

Doxpop pays the State Court Administration for a real-time data feed from counties using the Odyssey case management system, so when Tippecanoe converted to Odyssey recently. they were added to Doxpop as well.

Court case information available for Tippecanoe dates back to January of 1988, and includes all public case types.

December court updates released for Odyssey counties, Welcome to the Rush County Recorder!

The December update to court data sent from the State's Odyssey case management system has been released. During this release cycle, we focused on releasing the information quickly rather than adding new enhancements. Throughout the remainder of this month, we'll be working on enhancements that will be released with the January update.

Also of note: Today we welcome the Rush County Recorder to the Doxpop network! Rush County is the 20th Indiana Recorder to make documents available on-line via Doxpop, with an index reaching back to August 1997 and images available for documents recorded beginning in December 1998.

Thanks to Sally Neidenthal and her staff for becoming our 20th Recorded Documents partner!

The Long Odyssey: Doxpop's 4-year Quest Pays Off

Doxpop is now posting court cases from counties using the Odyssey case management system online. This means that several courts previously removed from Doxpop will be rejoining us and many new counties will add their court records. This is good news for our customers, our company, and—we believe—for the general public.

A significant development in Indiana court case public access has made this extension of public court case access possible, more than four years after the first court adopted the Odyssey case management system. On September 13, 2011, the Indiana Supreme Court issued an “Order Concerning the Bulk Distribution of and Remote Access to Court Records in the Electronic Form”, requiring that approved organizations like Doxpop be allowed to receive delivery of the cases. 

Back in October of 2007, anticipating the conversion of the Monroe County courts to Odyssey, Doxpop filed an initial request for access to the public information (in the case of Monroe County this would have allowed us to continue to post their courts’ records on Doxpop, which we had done since 2002). Each year since then we have renewed our request, but have never received access to this public information until a couple of weeks ago. “Better late than never”, we suppose, but four years was a long time to await this proper decision.

Doxpop receives no public money to support our service. Rather, it is supported entirely by service fees from voluntary subscribers. Because of this, we are always looking at the bottom line and working to keep our costs down. The bottom line on this particular data set is that it is very expensive, because in an unusual policy decision, a government agency has decided on its own to charge more than the cost of reproduction for public information.

During the past four years, the Administrative Division of the Indiana State Court has maintained a firm policy that private businesses like ours may not make a profit when providing the service of delivering court data in bulk. In an ironic twist, the Administrative Division has now decided that although private sector firms may not make a profit on this service, the Administrative Division may charge whatever they deem to be the "fair market value" of the information.

We are scratching our heads over how "market value" can be reasonably determined in the absence of a free market. Even more interesting is the notion of a government agency deciding to compete in a market that they also regulate. This is certainly not unheard of- In fact it has echoes in the ongoing national debate over health care. However, it is an unusual step for an agency to take without the sanction of a representative body such as the legislature. We hope that, as the branch of Indiana government charged with making fiscal policy, the Indiana legislature might provide the Administrative Division with some guidance on this policy in the future.

Regardless of the concerns we have with the policies lurking in the background, the Doxpop team is delighted to be able to enhance and extend our database by adding these courts, making Doxpop even more valuable to you. Keep watching for updates on Odyssey data!

Directory of Indiana local government information now available.

Last week on this blog, we introduced a comprehensive and growing set of links to local government information in Indiana. You can find it by following the link in the right sidebar of this blog.

This is a community effort- We invite all of you to pass along any links we've missed or let us know of corrections.

Thanks to Tina Gunter in the title division at Doyle Legal, who jumped in right away to add several important links to information from Marion County!

Please join us in opposing SB301

On March 24th, Doxpop participated in a House Committee hearing for Senate Bill 301, which proposes to increase the automated record-keeping fee portion of case filing fees charged after July 2011 by 50% (from $4 to $6.)

We oppose this bill for several reasons:

• SB301 Increases the burden on citizens while funding a government project that competes with the private sector in Indiana.
• The "statewide" case management system that this fee supports brings fewer features to local courts at a higher cost than existing systems already in use in the majority of Indiana Counties.
• The independent record-keeping system of the local clerks is an important check and balance in the justice system, providing a separately maintained record for situations where an appeal or other check on a trial court is necessary. JTAC calls removing the check of local independence efficiency. We call it bad government.
• The state court administration has consistently denied access to public court records in bulk from the state-sponsored system, even when the local courts join us in endorsing the request. This system is reducing public access to court records and subverting local government autonomy.

SB301 could be fixed if it were amended to allow local courts and clerks to use the proposed funding for the case management system of their choice as an alternative to the state-funded monopoly. If such an option were added, the fee could also be reasonably cut in half, as the alternatives are significantly cheaper.

Such an amendment would also guarantee continued funding for those counties already using the state-funded system. We're not opposed to having this system available as an option- We only oppose the State of Indiana allocating locally collected fees in a manner that forces counties to use a single vendor from out-of-state instead of freely choosing their own system from the open market.

If you'd like to join us by voicing your opinion on this bill, please contact your state legislator.

Ripley County Improves Court Case Access!

The Ripley County courts have posted their records on-line via Doxpop since 2007. We are excited to announce that Ripley has upgraded their local computer system, resulting in a more reliable and faster connection to Doxpop.

This change brings the following advantages to Doxpop subscribers using Ripley County Court Data:

1. Updates every 10 minutes, 24x7. Doxpop gives you everything you will find on the courthouse computer, but without the trek through the snow!
2. Immediate notifications on watched cases. When the clerk's office enters a return of service, you can know within minutes and without a phone call.
3. Timely and accurate scheduling information. When the court schedules a new hearing, it will appear on your Doxpop calendar within minutes, and you will receive an email notification.
4. Better access to financial information. Payments made in the clerk's office are reflected immediately in Doxpop.
5. Tax Warrants on-line. If you need Indiana DOR tax warrant information for Ripley county residents and businesses, you can now access it 24x7 on Doxpop.

Vanderburgh Court records through 1993 now available on Doxpop

Doxpop has completed the load of all public case records from the Vanderburgh County Courts system. This means that full records are now available for all courts from 1993 through the present. Some records are available prior to 1993, but because not all of the courts used a computer system at that time, we are not claiming a "full" record of cases prior to 1993.

Thanks to Court IT Director Tim VanCleave, Clerk Susan Kirk, and all of the Vanderburgh judges for their support and patience throughout this long project. They're a great group of people to work with and we look forward to a productive (and fun!) future with them.

Adams County Records Now On Doxpop

Doxpop is pleased to announce the addition of the Adams County Courts as the newest local government information providers in the Doxpop community. With the addition of Adams County, Doxpop now provides access to Court information in 48 Indiana Counties.

The court information available for Adams County includes all court cases filed beginning in June of 1990. Tax Warrants begin in January of 2002. Foreign judgments go under the original case type. Lis Pendens cases are not available.

Adams and the many other counties working with Doxpop help serve the public interest by making information available via the web at no cost to the county. Doxpop provides a range of tools designed to facilitate timely and efficient communication between county agencies and those who use county data.

Doxpop has been providing public access to Indiana court records since 2002 and Indiana recorded documents since 2005. Adams County is the 48th court system to join the Doxpop network, which currently provides access to over 10.3 million court case records and over 3.0 million recorded documents.

Vermillion County Records Now On Doxpop

Doxpop is pleased to announce the addition of the Vermillion County Courts as the newest local government information providers in the Doxpop community. With the addition of Vermillion County, Doxpop now provides access to Court information in 47 Indiana Counties.

The court information available for Vermillion County includes all court cases filed beginning in July of 1994. Lis Pendens and Tax Warrant cases are not available.

Vermillion and the many other counties working with Doxpop help serve the public interest by making information available via the web at no cost to the county. Doxpop provides a range of tools designed to facilitate timely and efficient communication between county agencies and those who use county data.

Doxpop has been providing public access to Indiana court records since 2002 and Indiana recorded documents since 2005. Vermillion County is the 47th court system to join the Doxpop network, which currently provides access to over 10.2 million court case records and over 2.9 million recorded documents.

Doxpop submits 798-page request for access to public information from Indiana Courts

On Friday, January 9, 2009, Doxpop shipped off its 798-page 2009 AR-9(F) request (pdf) for access to non-confidential case information in Indiana. Doxpop works with county clerks and judges to publish information about court cases on the Internet as permitted by Trial Rule 77(K) (html). Bulk access to court case information is governed by Administrative Rule 9(F) (html) and certain administrative authority under the rule is granted to the Division of State Court Administration, Lilia Judson, Executive Director.

In addition to a cover letter and a few pages of information specific to our request, the Division requires that we attach: 1) orders of consent from judges in each county from which we receive information, 2) copies of contracts with each county from which we receive information, and 3) copies of contracts with anyone to whom we provide bulk data. With about 50 counties participating in the Doxpop network, and 5 other organizations that receive bulk data via Doxpop, the paperwork adds up quickly.

But wait, there's more. There's another 4000 pages to submit before January 31. Each county that utilizes Doxpop to publish information on the Internet under TR-77(K) must also submit its own paperwork to the Division. This includes: 1) orders of consent from the judges in the county, 2) a copy of the contract with the county, and 3) detailed information about the Doxpop service and its user agreements. This adds up to about 80 pages per county. To facilitate the process, Doxpop prepares this paperwork for submission by the clerk.

It's worth noting that the consent orders and contracts in each TR-77(K) request are identical to the ones submitted by Doxpop in its AR-9(F) request. And the information about the Doxpop services is identical in each TR-77(K) request. All of this needs to be completed between January 1 and January 31: new consent orders from the judges, new AR-9(F) request from Doxpop, approval by the Division of Doxpop's request, and new TR-77(K) requests by each clerk. All of this at a busy time of year, especially for judges and clerks who just took office.

As you can see from the cover letter, Doxpop has some concerns about how the Division has chosen to interpret the rules. I'll say more about that in upcoming blog entries. For now I'll suggest that the current process is poorly designed, at best, or designed to frustrate clerks, judges, and counties who have not switched to the state-provided case management system, at worst. In the letter sent to clerks last year (pdf), the second paragraph seems to imply the latter.

Of course we comply with the process prescribed by the Division, but surely there's a better way.

Ray

Wayne County Resynch Nearly Done

Whew! Almost there. This weekend we completed the resynchronization of Wayne County to take care of a gap created earlier in the month when they had some problems with the server at the courthouse. This turned out to be a time consuming process as we reloaded 17 years worth of court case information for Wayne County.

We will be turning the data feed back on early Monday morning (11/3) to complete the process and return Wayne County to it's normal status.

Those of you who have calendar notification turned on or a number of alerts set for Wayne County cases may receive a slew of email in the morning as we catch up on the week that it took to complete this process. (What? You don't use calendar notification or alerts? Click here and here to learn about what you've been missing!)

Thanks for your patience while we worked through this reload.

Indiana Court Announces Bulk Data Direction

The Indiana Supreme Court, Division of State Court Administration has declared its intentions with regard to bulk access to public information about court cases stored in its own system. The statement of direction is short on details but better than no statement at all, I suppose. Doxpop and others have requested access to the public information and we're eager to get something workable in place.

Today I received a letter from Jim Walker, Director of Trial Court Management. It states that the Division is exploring how to make bulk data available in a uniform manner from the state-sponsored case management system, Odyssey. The cost, format, and frequency of publication is not yet determined. No timetable is given for completion of their analysis or for providing the data.

Doxpop has been corresponding with the Division for over a year-and-a-half with regard to accessing bulk data from the Odyssey system. On January 29, 2007 we sent a formal request to Mary DePrez, Director and Counsel for Trial Court Technology, asking to begin collaboration on the exchange of public information with the Odyssey system. On October 25, 2007 we sent a formal request to Lilia Judson, Executive Director of State Court Administration, for access to Monroe County court information in anticipation of Monroe County switching over to the Odyssey system. Nearly 19 months have passed since our original request for collaboration, and 10 months since our specific request for access to public information from Monroe County.

Although I am encouraged by the statement of direction, I hope that the Division and the Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC) can move more quickly on completing its analysis and actually providing access than it has in considering the very idea of bulk access to public information.

Access delayed is access denied.

What we learned from Justice Sullivan.

On Friday, Ray and I attended a meeting of the Commission on Courts. Justice Sullivan's comments at that meeting about the JTAC effort to roll out a statewide Case Management System included a couple of interesting assertions. -Both in connection with an astute question from Representative Ryan Dvorak. He inquired about courts who wished to continue using their current Case Management System and whether any standards for compatibility were contemplated. The answer was revealing:

1) In regard to standards, Sullivan asserted that the State Court had tried that path and decided that because technology advances so quickly, that approach was unworkable.

This highlights a fundamental difference in our approaches. At Doxpop, we believe that the best way to keep pace with technology is to create functional standards to promote the consistent administration of justice and then allow the free market to respond with the best technology has to offer.

2) In regard to the systems currently existing, I understood from Justice Sullivan that the strategy is to roll out the Odyssey CMS to any county that will accept it freely and then ask the public policy question of whether local courts should be allowed to spend public funds on a system that is "technically inferior".

This makes the uncertain assumption that the State's system is superior technology. County Courts have been discouraged from replacing or upgrading their systems since 1995 and this has resulted in outdated technology in many counties. However, the courts that have decided to move forward on their own currently enjoy features such as document management, integrated probation modules, e-filing and on-line access to a statewide repository of public court records- features that are certainly on par with or exceed the features of system installed in Monroe County.

A modest proposal: Let's all work together to serve the people of Indiana. The free market has a way of keeping pace with technology despite the best efforts of government.

What we learned in Bloomington.

Last week, Ray and I traveled to Bloomington to learn for ourselves how Odyssey is working out. We came back with a clear understanding that although it may have potential, the task of making Odyssey ready for roll out to other Indiana courts is not done. From every person we talked to, we learned that the public access falls short of the standards Doxpop previously established in Monroe County, and from one, we learned that the Clerk's office works harder to maintain records in this CMS than with the previous system.

Doxpop stands ready to assist in one aspect of this task... On January 27, 2007, Doxpop requested access to a regular data feed from the Odyssey system per our existing authorization from the Courts of Monroe County. We were quickly told that in the new environment, the County Courts no longer control who has access to their data. Therefore, we had to submit a request to the Division of State Court Administration instead. This request was submitted on October 25, 2007. We're still waiting.

JTAC has excellent goals. Doxpop stands ready to help. Tomorrow, I'll talk a little more about the goals of JTAC and how companies in Indiana can help them achieve their goals.