TRIAL COURT ROLLS OUT MASSCOURTS TO
THREE
HOUSING COURT DIVISIONS
Chief
Justice for Administration and Management Robert A. Mulligan
today announced that the Trial Court has completed its
rollout of MassCOURTS to three of the five divisions
of the Housing Court Department: the Northeast division
centered in Lawrence, the Worcester division, and the
Western division centered in Springfield. MassCOURTS
is the Trial Court's web-based, electronic case management
system.
The Housing Court Department
is the first of the Trial Court Departments to use the full civil and full criminal
MassCOURTS capabilities.
Rollout
of the system to the three divisions was accomplished
over a three-week period beginning July 16. Delivery
of the system to the two remaining Housing Court divisions,
one in Boston and the other centered in Plymouth and
Bristol Counties, will be completed by October. Thereafter,
rollout efforts will turn to the Probate & Family Court.
The
rollout followed months of joint preparation by Housing
Court employees under the direction of Housing Court
Chief Justice Steven D. Pierce, Director of Housing Court
Operations Paul J. Burke, and Field Coordinator John
P. Umile, and by employees of the Trial Court Information
Services under the direction of Chief Information Officer
Craig D. Burlingame and Project Manager Stephen J. Coppola.
Chief
Justice Pierce said: “The successful rollout of
MassCOURTS in the Housing Court Department is the result
of the careful planning and hard work of many individuals.
Their efforts will yield important benefits for many
years to come.”
The
MassCOURTS system is designed to increase efficiencies
in management of the Trial Court’s caseload through
better information sharing inside and outside the Trial
Court itself. As an example of outside information sharing,
the system ensures that attorney information associated
with every pending case is current and up to date through
an automated nightly exchange of electronic information
with the Board of Bar Overseers. Internally, MassCOURTS
provides all trial court departments with a common system
and allows any court employee with appropriate security
clearance to review information about any case the system
contains. Because the system operates on the web, case
information is available to authorized employees anywhere
there is an Internet connection, a feature that will
facilitate rapid recovery in the event of a natural disaster
or localized problems that block access to a particular
courthouse.
The
MassCOURTS case management system, in whole or in part,
now operates in 67 Divisions of the Land Court, Boston
Municipal Court, District Court, Housing Court and Probation
Department. The system contains information on approximately
3.5 million cases and more than 10 million case events.
Approximately 570 Trial Court employees use the system
simultaneously during an average working day, adding
approximately 27,000 new cases and 400,000 new events
to the system each month.
