Benton County Joins the Family of Doxpop Recorders. Welcome!

This week, Doxpop is welcoming Jane Turner and her staff to the growing family of Recorders who make their documents available through Doxpop.

Benton County is our new record-holder for the most complete on-line index! Jane and her staff have complete indexes and images for all documents available through August 1970, providing the ability to look back 45 years. In addition, deed records are available as far back as 1944. That's an impressive achievement that few other Recorder's offices can match.

Document searching and image preview are available at no cost to low-volume users. Commercial users may subscribe to obtain higher search volumes. A copy fee is charged for full-sized reproductions of the documents.

In addition, The Recorder's Office now offers a free property watch service to the Benton County Community. Any person may sign up at http://watch.doxpop.com to set a watch on his or her property and name. Participants are notified via email immediately if a document is filed that references the watched property or name.

Both of these services have been provided without any use of public funding (no use of tax money.) The access provided by these services is in addition to the public access already provided at the courthouse.

Benton County is the 39th County Recorder's office to partner with Doxpop for public access. In addition to Recorded Documents, Doxpop also provides public access to Court Case Information in Benton County and 87 other counties.

Enjoying a bit of history in Corydon while preparing for the future.

Yesterday, Paula and Nick from Doxpop ventured South to Corydon to speak to local attorneys and their staff about e-filing.

Of course, we couldn't leave Corydon without walking over to the old Capitol, which is on the South lawn outside the current courthouse. We interrupted Denzil McKim, who was painting and cleaning in preparation for the bicentennial. He was kind enough to pause in his work to let us look around and answer questions.

If we were looking from this angle two hundred years ago, the view would be obscured by the "Consitutional Elm". Legend has it that during the hot days of summer, the representatives would move their debates outside to enjoy the shade of this tree.

A little piece of the tree still exists and sits under its picture inside.

The desks that the Representatives and Senators used are reminiscent of old school desks, with room to write and keep notes. Denzil added the interesting fact that until 1952, Indiana schools taught everyone to write with their right hand, so in a mild form of intolerance, there are no left-handed desks in this building. 

Presumably, this is where the Grand Poobah sat.  The governor's office was in his house, so this would be for the leader of the House or Senate. In 1816, there were 29 Representatives, 10 Senators, and 3 Justices that used this building for their meetings.

In the early 1800's, you had to have at least 60,000 people to join the club, so it was this 1815 census that allowed Indiana to make the move from a Territory to a State. If you squint closely at the top entry, it says "Wain" County contributed 6,406 souls to that count. Doxpop is located in Wayne County, and we currently account for 14 of the people there.

If you look closely, you'll see that at first, the addition was done wrong and because it was in ink, Dennis Pennington's error is preserved for posterity. Dennis Pennington was a leader in early Indiana politics, notable among other things for the strong anti-slavery stance he took during the drafting of the constitution. 

Back in the modern world, we found this monument to former governor Frank O'Bannon on the Southwest corner of the block. From this statue, you can still see the newspaper his family owns and still operates.

Of course, the reason we were here was also a bit more modern. Doxpop was giving a presentation on our e-filing solution for attorneys to a group of attorneys and their staff at the Harrison County Courthouse on the North end of the lawn.


And finally... no travelogue would be complete without a restaurant recommendation. Although we didn't have time to eat there this time, a stroll one block further South will bring you to the Point Blank Brewery, which has great pizza (and presumably, beer.) If you decide to spend an afternoon in Corydon, you can easily walk to all of these places, and walking is the appropriate way to soak in history.

Martin County Recorder joins the Doxpop Network!

Today Doxpop is welcoming the Martin County Recorder's Office!

We thank Rhonda Sanders, Martin County Recorder, for trusting Doxpop to provide online public access services for her office. Now it's our turn, and we plan to return the favor with excellent service to Rhonda and her constituents in Martin County. Here are the services Doxpop provides:

Community members can sign up using our "informed citizen" account level to obtain occasional access to recorded document information at no cost. At this service level, searching for documents and viewing them is free. A copy fee is charged if the user decides to download a document image for printing or later use.

Professional users who need more than occasional access may sign up for a paid subscription that provides more powerful searching tools and high volume access. Law offices, title firms and other businesses who interact with the Recorder's Office regularly will find that this service lowers their cost of doing business.

Access Martin County Recorded Documents at http://www.doxpop.com.

Doxpop's Property Watch service is now also available to landowners in Martin County at no cost. The property watch service helps prevent real estate fraud by notifying landowners whenever a document is filed referencing their property. To sign up for this service for free, go to: http://watch.doxpop.com.

All Martin County documents filed on or after January 1, 2003 are available through Doxpop.

Rhonda Sanders has provided all of these services to her community at no cost to the taxpayers of Martin County. The new services are funded completely by the fees professional users pay for enhanced access services.

In addition to accessing Martin County Recorded documents, users of Doxpop may obtain recorded documents from Daviess and Dubois counties and public court case information for Martin County and all surrounding counties. In total, Doxpop users can now access Recorded Documents from 38 Indiana counties and Court Records from 88 counties.

Starke Circuit Court converts to Odyssey. Doxpop user's access unaffected.

Over the last weekend, the Starke County Circuit Court 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 February, 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.

Press Release: Doxpop Joins Indiana Electronic Filing Network

Doxpop Joins Indiana Electronic Filing Network

Richmond, Indiana (January 20, 2016) -- The Indiana Supreme Court has certified Doxpop, LLC, as an electronic filing service provider in the Indiana Statewide Electronic Filing System. Attorneys and self-represented litigants may now use Doxpop to submit court case filings electronically in participating trial and appellate courts.

Filers may choose to use the Doxpop system for e-filing, or the more basic e-filing portal provided by the Court, or one provided by other commercial systems. Appellate IT Director Robert Rath explained, "E-file Indiana is a marketplace for independent e-filing service providers. The addition of Doxpop allows litigants the choice of features and services and we are very pleased to announce their certification."

Electronic filing is now available to Doxpop customers. "Doxpop has been serving the needs of the legal community in Indiana since 2002, and we are delighted to provide integrated e-filing services to our subscribers," said Ray Ontko, President of Doxpop. "Users are able to access e-filing functions from the familiar and trusted Doxpop environment they already use to track and research cases every day. All e-filing features, including filing, service, and notification, are available within the Doxpop system."

Attorneys and others who file will be transitioning to electronic filing over the coming year as more courts join the filing network. "Our system makes e-filing simple and our friendly customer support team is ready to guide new users through this transition," said Nick Fankhauser, Doxpop's VP of Indiana Operations.

In 2014 the Indiana Supreme Court announced the implementation of statewide e-filing to reduce paper copies, postage, and trips to the clerk's office. The e-filing initiative has strong support from the legislative and executive branches, attorneys, clerks, judges, and staff. Within the first 100 days of e-filing, more than 4,000 documents were filed electronically. Plans call for statewide implementation by the end of 2018. Information about e-filing can be found at courts.in.gov/efile.

Doxpop, established in 2002, provides web-based access to local and state government information for the general public at no cost and to attorneys and other professionals for a modest fee. Court case information in 88 of 92 Indiana counties and land records in 37 counties are available online.

You can learn more about Doxpop by visiting www.doxpop.com or calling 765-965-7363.

###

Press Contact

Ray Ontko
Doxpop, LLC
rayo@doxpop.com
(765) 373-9251

Vigo County converts to Odyssey. Doxpop user's access unaffected.

Over the last weekend, the Courts in Vigo County moved 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 early January, 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.

Notifications paused, but coming back soon.

** Update: Notifications were resumed at 5PM today (12/4) and will be completely caught up by the end of the day.

Yesterday, the State Court Administration added some information to the data feed Doxpop uses. In the long run, this is a good thing and we are grateful that they are adding the information.

However, the manner in which this information is being added is that a massive number of cases are being completely deleted and then put back with the new information added. Since Doxpop scans every single update to cases for changes that our customers want to know about, this has resulted in a huge number of bogus notifications and slowed our system significantly.

To deal with this, we have turned off the notification system briefly while we apply a filter to remove these false notifications. As soon as we've removed those, we'll turn the notifications back on, and the system will catch up on the notifications for changes you actually care about. We expect that to happen late this afternoon.

We're sorry for any inconvenience this causes. It's ultimately good that more information is being made available, but we wish it had happened in a more graceful manner!

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to give us a call: 866-369-7671, or email support@doxpop.com.

A big welcome to the Bartholomew County Recorder's office!

Please join us in welcoming Anita Hole, Bartholomew County Recorder, and her office to the family of Doxpop partners!

The Bartholomew County Recorder's Office recently completed a local software conversion that allowed us to add them to the Doxpop Public Access System. This will make research much easier for researchers who previously had to look in more than one place to do a complete search.

Both images and index information for all documents filed on or after January 1, 1983 is now available online.

Anyone wishing to look up recorded documents on-line may visit http://www.doxpop.com to use the service. A low-volume search plan is available for free, with higher-volume subscriptions available to commercial users for a fee.

In addition, Bartholomew County citizens may now use the Doxpop Property Watch Service at no cost. The property watch service helps prevent property fraud and identity theft by allowing people to set a watch for any new documents filed at the Recorder's office referencing their property or name.

Anita Hole has worked with Doxpop to provide these enhanced access services at no cost to Bartholomew County.

Please join us in taking the Wayne County Foundation's Money! (And giving it to JACY House.)

We slipped in just under the wire on this one, and we hope you'll join us!

In their 2015 Challenge Match Program, which ends tomorrow, the Wayne County Foundation is matching donations for 27 local organizations.

One of these, JACY House, is a particularly important and deserving organization. The mission of JACY House is to provide a non-intrusive, non-threatening safe environment for interviewing victims and/or witnesses of suspected child abuse.

At Doxpop we have court case data for most of the state of Indiana. The human stories behind this data make it painfully clear that abuse of children places them at serious risk for becoming juvenile offenders, and then in turn becoming abusers themselves in a heartbreaking vicious cycle.

We cannot just look at this data and not be moved to action, so Doxpop has donated $500 to JACY House, which will grow to become $1,000 with the WCF match. We hope their work will break this painful cycle before it starts.

We think the legal professionals we work with will see this need just as clearly as we do. Will you join us today in making sure JACY House is able to take full advantage of this matching donation program before it expires?

If just nine more businesses will join us at the same level, they'll get the entire match.

Time is short, with the match challenge ending tomorrow, so please use the Wayne County Foundation's web site to make your donation right away. Here is the link to their donation site:

https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/WCF

Dearborn County Infractions Now Payable Online Via Doxpop Finepay

Today Doxpop welcomes Dearborn County to the family of 27 counties that can accept fine payments for infractions online via http://payment.doxpop.com.

Dearborn borders the state line with Ohio, and as the home of Hollywood Casino, Perfect North Slopes and the Lawrenceburg Speedway, is a destination for many travelers. This makes online fine payment an especially useful service for the Clerk's office to provide to motorists from outside the county.

Online payments made be made at any time during the day or night, every day of the year, and payments are receipted immediately. Although we hope you don't wait until the last moment, payment.doxpop.com can also help procrastinators who realize they need to make a payment the day before it is due.

The Dearborn County Clerk, Rick Probst, has implemented this service at no cost to the taxpayers in Dearborn County. This service is supported solely through convenience fees paid by the people who choose to use it.

Note that the Lawrenceburg City Court is not a part of this service. Follow this link for payment information for Lawrenceburg City Court.

Welcome aboard to Rick Probst and his staff!