Courts Continue Modernizing Services for the Public

Digitizing court records, ensuring disaster recovery during unexpected server outages, and other technology projects improve services and access for court users

California appellate courts digitized their operations, saving off-site storage costs and increasing public access to records.
In Sutter County, the court created a back-up server system in the cloud that helped it restart its computer system in minutes after an outage, ensuring continuing services to the public.
In Los Angeles County, the court created a tool that allows litigants, attorneys, and court staff to view and share small claims evidence.

These are just three examples highlighted during a presentation at the July 18 Judicial Council business meeting, where court leaders shared how California courts use money in the state budget dedicated to court technology to improve their internal operations and services for court users.

Courts of Appeal Digitize Court Records
The Courts of Appeal in California had a problem: too many paper documents that were costly to store, difficult to access, and at risk of damage or loss.

Money available from the branchwide Information Technology Modernization (IT Mod) Funding Grant program enabled the courts to scan 16,555,487 documents, eliminate 6,389 bankers boxes filled with papers, and save $20,111 annually in off-site storage.

The project also eliminated the need for court staff to physically retrieve and photocopy records, and increased the public’s access to the records online.

“The public benefit of digitizing records and provides immediate electronic access to records is tremendous and enhances service to both court staff and to the public,” said Charles Johnson, Clerk/Executive Officer, Court of Appeal, First Appellate District. “It created significant operational efficiency, as we can pull up documents in seconds and send it to the member of the public if requested.”

Back-up Servers in the Cloud
The Superior Court of Sutter County had a problem: it had no contingency plan if its computer servers went down unexpectedly.

The Sutter court’s IT Mod grant enabled it to create a back-up server system in the cloud in case of emergency.

Fortunately, the court finished the project before last year’s CrowdStrike outage. A faulty update caused widespread problems with Microsoft Windows computers running Crowdstrike’s security software. Millions of systems crashed and were unable to properly restart in what has been called the largest outage in the history of information technology.

But with its new cloud-based backup system, the Sutter court recovered its server systems within minutes, ensuring business as usual at the court by 9:00 a.m.

“These are situations you hope never occur, but being prepared is critical to business operations,” said AJ Guzman, Chief Information Officer, Superior Court of Sutter County. “Our disaster recovery solution ensured timely access to justice, which is important for building and maintaining public trust and confidence in our court systems.”

View and Share Small Claims Evidence
The Superior Court of Los Angeles County had a problem: an inefficient, costly, and manual process for documents in small claims cases.

IT Mod funding enabled the court to upgrade its system for handling evidence in small claims cases, which can now be uploaded, shared, and viewed online.

“Now all small claims participants—litigants, attorneys, and court staff—can interact with the evidence electronically,” said Assistant Presiding Judge Ricardo R. Ocampo, Superior Court of Los Angeles County.

Funding for Upgrading Court Technology to Continue
At that July business meeting, the council also approved the next allocation of grant funding from the IT Mod program for fiscal year 2025-26. This year’s priorities include court projects related to cyber/information security, remote proceedings, data analytics, AI, and modernizing court technology infrastructure.

“The technology modernization funding allows each court to identify particular needs of their communities,” said Judge Kyle Brodie, chair of the council’s Technology Committee, during the council meeting. “When awarding the program funding, we emphasize the need to use technology to improve access to our courts.”

History of the Court Technology Grant Program
The state Budget Act of 2020 and 2021 each appropriated $25 million for the modernization of California’s trial courts through the Court Technology Modernization Funding Grant program. On July 24, 2020, the Judicial Council directed its Technology Committee to make recommendations for allocating this funding for local court projects. The Technology Committee established program requirements, a court application request process, and a method for evaluating the projects, identifying branch technology priorities, and making funding recommendations.

Based on the success of these projects, the Budget Act of 2022 approved ongoing funding to continue modernizing California’s judicial branch through technology. To reflect the ongoing appropriation, the program name changed to the Information Technology Modernization (IT Mod) Funding Grant.

Most recent council report on the technology grant program

Watch technology projects update presented at July 18 council business meeting