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.