Electronic Filing Architecture

Background

The proposed Washington State Electronic Filing Technical Standards presuppose a specific underlying architecture for filing cases electronically. This architecture was first conceptualized by the Legal XML community and further elaborated by the California Administrative Office of the Courts.

Components

Filers can be litigants, attorneys, law firms state and county agencies or anyone else who has cause to file a case or documents with a court.

Electronic Filing Service Providers (EFSPs) can be either courts or business entities that provide electronic filing services to filers. They forward document filings to the courts and forward court responses back to filers. Multiple EFSPs may exist, since the interface between the EFSP and the court EFM is based on an open standard using XML. A commercial EFSP is free to choose a business model and an array of services.

Electronic Filing Managers (EFMs) accept filings from EFSPs and submit them to court case management systems (CMSs) and document management systems (DMSs). Both external interfaces are based on open standards using XML. Typically, a court will control the EFM, even if it contracts with a vendor to provide it, and there will only be one EFM per court.

Case Management Systems (CMSs) accept filing data from EFMs and maintain court data necessary to manage court cases. With two important exceptions, all courts in Washington State use case management systems operated by the AOC. The exceptions are Seattle Municipal Court and Pierce Superior Court.

Document Management Systems (DMSs) accept documents from EFMs and maintain images or electronic versions of the documents submitted by filers. About half of the county clerks in Washington State, representing more than half of the filings, now operate DMSs supplied by three different vendors.

The EFSPs, EFMS, CMSs, and DMSs all send and receive data and/or documents marked up with XML tags based on published application programming interfaces or APIs. These APIs and the underlying tags are based on open national standards established by appropriate bodies. In addition, the APIs for the EFMs include standards-based functionality that governs querying capability, unique court filing policies and unique court data requirements. A court may contract for none, some or all of these components as desired, as long as they comply with the technical standards.