IN Supremes post proposed rule changes, some affecting technology.

The Indiana Supreme Court has just posted a batch of seven proposed rule changes. Doxpop is taking note of them because four of them touch on technology or document formatting issues and may affect the e-filers we work with. At first glance, this all makes sense to us. We thought you'd be interested as well:

The first proposed change requires that an email address and cell phone number be provided when an attorney or a pro se litigant files an appearance in a case. Note that the Court is piloting a text notification program in several counties. Presumably this rule anticipates more widespread use of that system if the pilot goes well.

Another proposed change  applies similar rules about email and cell numbers to the commencement of a small claim.

A proposal for changes to the appellate rules cleans up some stray terminology left over from the transition to e-filing, specifies how to provide exhibits on electronic media to the court, and adds a couple of non-technical rules about appendices.

Another proposed appellate rule change specifies some formatting rules:

• Courier is removed from the list of allowed fonts for briefs/petitions and Calisto MT is added.
• Line spacing on transcripts goes from double-spaced to 25 points in height.

In addition, language implying that malware scanning is done by the Clerk has been removed. (It is still done as an automated process, so this appears to be just for clarity.)

In addition to the proposals noted above that we're tracking as a technology firm, there are three other proposals that don't affect our work significantly, but will certainly be of interest to attorneys. You can find those three here:

• Changes to Criminal Rule 22, Appellate Rule 44, Small Claims Rule 8, and several Trial Rules.

• Changes proposed by ISBA Appellate Section affecting time limits.

• A completely new rule that clearly outlines the procedure for Notices of Defect in the Appellate and Tax Courts. 

Public service contacts are now available in your service contact tools!

We've made your public service contact information more visible to account administrators. 

You will now find that we display the public service contact information (red box) for each attorney in your firm (blue box) on the e-file account administration page. Remember this is the service contact that e-file users outside of your firm may attach to a case in order to serve one of your attorneys if they find that the attorney is not already listed as a service contact for a particular case.

Where does this information come from?
We query the e-file public service contact list using the Bar ID of each of the attorneys registered on your account (blue box) and display the public service contact information for each of them (red box).

What if something listed here is wrong?
Since the public service contact list is based on the Roll of Attorneys information, you will need to correct that via the Roll of Attorneys. We've made that a little easier by providing a link to the Roll of Attorneys site within the Public Service Contacts box.

You can now attach/detach/replace public service contacts using Doxpop's batch attachment tools.

Navigate to these tools by clicking the [Additional Tools] button under Service Contacts.

Attaching a public service contact to all of an attorney's cases:

1) Enter the Bar ID for the attorney you want to find cases for. (blue box)
2) If that bar ID matches a registered attorney on your firm, we will place the attorney's public service contact along with your firm's private service contacts in the Service Contact drop-down (red box). Public contacts are noted by the globe symbol to the left. The private contacts, created within the firm account, have no symbol.
3) If you only want this to affect cases of a specific status, choose that status. (green box)
4) Click [Attach]. The process will run and you will receive a summary email showing which cases were affected. (This process may take a while, but you can leave this screen and do other work while you wait for the summary to arrive.)


Using the detach and replace features with public service contacts:

First, in either section, you will want to find the public service contact you want to work with. Do this by selecting "Find a Public Service Contact" in the Service contact drop-down.

A window will open allowing you to search the public service contact list. Enter your search criteria and click [Search]. A list of matching results will show below. Click [Select] next to the contact you want to work with.

In the service contact drop-down you will see the public service contact and you can now run either the Detach or Replace process for it. This service contact will remain in those drop-down lists from this point forward.

It important to remember that you will only be able to detach or replace public service contacts on cases where someone within your firm originally attached them. If they were attached by someone from another firm you will not be able to detach them. Contact Doxpop Support for help in that case. 


If you are not already familiar with the changes made to public service contacts at the first of the year catch up here:
State Court is doing away with the public service contacts that each attorney sets up and maintains for themselves.

Haven't seen our batch attachment tools? Catch up here.
E-file Reminder: Make sure you control your service contact!

Randolph County just started e-filing, and we're here to help you work with them!

E-Filing is now available for the county courts in Randolph county. (No city courts yet.)

E-Filing will be mandatory for the county courts on May 14th.

Remember that if you've got a Doxpop account, you can begin e-filing through us at no additional cost, so give us a call at 866-369-7671 to learn how to get started with your Randolph cases and set up your service contact information so you won't miss any new filings by opposing parties.


If you are already using Doxpop to e-file, and have cases in Randolph, it is important to use our "batch attach" features to make sure your preferred service contact is attached to all of your existing cases in Randolph. If you need help with that process, give us a call for friendly help, or view this video:

Satisfaction/Expungement information missing for 55 Tax Warrants.

Due to a processing error, we were not displaying complete satisfaction information or expungement for a total of 55 tax warrants spread over the following counties:

• Clay 
• Clinton 
• Daviess 
• Decatur 
• Howard 
• Jefferson 
• Kosciusko 
• LaGrange 
• Miami 
• Noble 
• Putnam 
• Randolph 
• Spencer 
• Warrick 
• Whitley 

Note that no warrants were missing, just information that might have led you to disregard the warrant. If this problem may have affected searches you did, and you’d like to receive a complete list of the affected warrants, please email us at support@doxpop.com. We’ll send the complete list for your review.

The underlying problem that resulted in these omissions has been resolved. Sorry about any inconvenience this may have caused!

Clarksville Town Court and several Marion County Small Claims Courts join e-file!

Welcome Clarksville Town Court and the Marion County Small Claims Courts for Franklin, Perry, and Wayne Townships to the list of counties in the e-file system. 

As part of our continuing effort to remind you when new courts go live in e-file, we now welcome Clarksville Town Court and the Marion County Small Claims Courts for Franklin, Perry, and Wayne Townships to e-file!

This is just a reminder that if you have open cases in any of these courts now is the time to use our mass service contact attachment feature to get your private firm service contact attached to all your open cases. In addition to finding your open cases in these new counties, this will catch any other open cases you may not have your private service contact attached to yet in any e-filing county.

We have a quick video showing you how it works if you click on this link.

For more information about how private and public service contacts may affect you, visit our initial and follow up blog posts linked below:

• Effective 1/1/18 the State Court is doing away with the public service contacts that each attorney sets up and maintains for themselves.
• E-file Reminder: Make sure you control your service contact!
• You can now attach your firm service contact to closed, as well as open, cases in our batch attachment tool!

Welcome Spencer County to e-filing! Now is the time to get your service contact attached to your cases.

On Wednesday, February 21st Spencer County joined the list of counties in the e-file system. 

We also welcomed  Lawrence Township and Washington Township Small Claims Courts in Marion County on Friday, February 16th.

This is just a reminder that if you have open cases in any of these courts now is the time to use our mass service contact attachment feature to get your private firm service contact attached to all your open cases. In addition to finding your open cases in these new counties, this will catch any other open cases you may not have your private service contact attached to yet in any e-filing county.

We have a quick video showing you how it works if you click on this link.

For more information about how private and public service contacts may affect you, visit our initial and follow up blog posts linked below:

• Effective 1/1/18 the State Court is doing away with the public service contacts that each attorney sets up and maintains for themselves.
• E-file Reminder: Make sure you control your service contact!
• You can now attach your firm service contact to closed, as well as open, cases in our batch attachment tool!

You can now attach your firm service contact to closed, as well as opened, cases in our batch attachment tool!

When we first introduced the batch service contact attachment feature you could only attach to open cases. Now you have the option to attach to open and/or closed cases!

We added the option to attach the contact of your choice to closed (disposed) cases because that may be even more important than attaching yourself to your open (pending) cases. 

When someone makes a filing on a previously disposed case where you are the attorney of record, there are typically two situations:

1. You are still involved in this case and you want to ensure you get prompt notification of new filings.
2. This is a case you are no longer involved in, but the clerk didn't process your motion to withdraw when it was approved.

In the second case, there is a danger that the new filer will attach your public service contact. Then, even if the clerk later removes you from the case, you won't be able to detach your service contact. Making sure you attach your chosen service contact to any case where you are the attorney of record ensures that you can also detach it later.

If you would like to know why life is easier when you control your service contact, take a look at this previous blog post: E-file Reminder: Make sure you control your service contact!

How to get there:

The batch attachment tool is still located in the 'E-filing Account Administration" on the e-filing tab:

Then click on additional tools in the Service Contacts section:

Now you can choose which case status you would like the process to attach your service contacts to:
Of course, if you happen to have a large caseload and choose closed or all cases this process may take some time. 

Brown County is now available in e-file! Get your service contact attached now.

On Wednesday, January 31st we welcomed Brown County to the list of counties in the e-file system. 

We also welcomed Beech Grove City Court (Marion County) on Friday, February 2nd.

This is just a reminder that if you have open cases in either of these courts now is the time to use our mass service contact attachment feature to get your private firm service contact attached to all your open cases. In addition to finding your open cases in these new counties, this will catch any other open cases you may not have your private service contact attached to yet in any e-filing county.

We have a quick video showing you how it works if you click on this link.

For more information about how private and public service contacts may affect you, visit our initial and follow up blog posts linked below:

• Effective 1/1/18 the State Court is doing away with the public service contacts that each attorney sets up and maintains for themselves.
• E-file Reminder: Make sure you control your service contact!

New Search Option in Advanced Court Case Search

We've added an option to search by Case Title to our Advanced Court Case search:

This option should help when searching for guardianship cases. Often the Case Caption includes the name but the person is not listed as a Party on the case.

For example, "In Re. the Guardianship of John Doe" where John isn't listed as a case party. Our case search for John Doe won't return that case. Searching John Doe in the new Case Title Contains field will.

We hope you'll find many more uses for this new tool. Please don't hesitate to call us at 866-369-7671 with any questions. We also like to hear your suggestions, so feel free to offer those as well!

 

Montgomery County Courts move to Odyssey. Access to Court Records through Doxpop unaffected.

Over the weekend of January 27th/28th, the Montgomery 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 Montgomery 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 active 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 February, after that, we'll be back to normal.

Finally, one deficiency in the Odyssey system from our perspective 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 Court Technology add this to the Odyssey data feed. If this information is important to you, please encourage the clerks you work with to tell the Indiana Office of Judicial 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.