CGI Saves Time and Money for Allegheny County Court System

"By crossing the chasm into eFiling, we were able to work through any resultant problems before wide adoption of the system by lawyers and court officials. We couldn’t have done this without CGI’s technological expertise and profound understanding of government operations."

Eric Feder, deputy Prothonotary in Allegheny County

Each day, the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas processes 25,000 pieces of paper, equal to 50 reams. Annually, the court processes more than 8.8 million sheets of paper, equivalent to 17,750 reams of paper. Fifteen employees are devoted to processing this paper full-time. The increasing volume of court cases is leading to a significant growth in paper processing and staff hours. In comparison, the average American worker uses only 16 reams of paper annually. Every year these 15 Allegheny County employees each handle 74 times as much paper as the average American office worker.

The Challenge
The Office of the Prothonotary has administrative control and responsibility for all official documents and records of the Court of Common Pleas in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

To battle these massive volumes of paper and the associated time and expense, Allegheny County’s Office of the Prothonotary issued an RFP to locate the best vendor for an Internet-based filing system for court documents, hoping to reduce paper filings by 50 percent. With this system attorneys could electronically file and search court cases. The general public would have access to court documents and case information. The system would also automate the manual processing of court cases.

An advisory committee of Allegheny County officials unanimously agreed that CGI offered the most comprehensive, reliable and scalable Internet-based solution to completely satisfy their needs. “CGI had the best technology to electronically file court documents,” said Eric Feder, deputy Prothonotary in Allegheny County.

The Strategy
CGI studied the needs of the Prothonotary, attorneys and general public through on-site interviews and analysis of their existing processes. From this, CGI developed three primary objectives to meet Allegheny County’s needs. First, create an intuitive, easy to use browser interface for court staff, attorneys and the general public to minimize training. Second, Web-enable the existing case management system to provide around-the-clock Internet access to court information, documents and system administration. Third, develop a scalable, open architecture design to improve system reliability, and empower the court staff to maintain and support the entire system.

CGI developed a comprehensive, Internet-based court application providing front to back office automation. Attorneys could electronically file cases, pay filing fees and search the case management database for cases and related legal documents online. An email receipt confirms that attorneys’ cases were successfully processed, and the case information and related documents are automatically entered and indexed in the case management system for Internet access.

Electronically filed cases are automatically routed in electronic workbaskets to court clerks for rapid processing and approval. This system was designed to process over 135,000 documents per week, 6,000 cases per month and scale to more than 8,000 users.

The Results
Since inception one year ago, 2-3 percent of court documents are filed electronically. Annually this saves approximately 444 reams of paper and 735 hours of staff time. “We expected adoption to be slow.

This is a long-term solution for us. We’re ahead of the curve compared to other court systems. By crossing the chasm into eFiling, we were able to work through any resultant problems before wide current goal, it will save $225,000 annual in salary expenses or free up 15,000 hours of staff time, 4,437,500 sheets (8,875 reams) of paper annually, and approximately 535 trees annually.

Allegheny County expects that CGI’s electronic court filing system will continue to greatly help and improve their operations in the future. “We will have faster processes, cost-savings and less staff hours devoted to filing paper as adoption increases,” said Feder.