Washington Courts: Press Release Detail

New System will Bring Electronic Filing, Modern Case Management to District and Municipal Courts

The public will have the ability to electronically file and serve documents in Washington’s district and municipal courts and will have improved access to online case records with the addition of a modern case management system scheduled to begin implementation in 2021.

The Odyssey case management system will provide judges and court staff better access to statewide case records, will streamline case management, and will provide probation departments with their first shared, statewide system. It will replace a case processing system built for district and municipal courts in 1987, and will be implemented in about 240 courts across the state.

“We are excited to bring this modern system to our hard-working district and municipal courts, which shoulder more than 80 percent of the caseload for Washington’s judicial system,” said Washington State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Madsen, chair of the Judicial Information System Committee (JISC). “This new case management system will help them with their tremendous work load, and will also serve probation departments and improve public access through electronic filing.”

A contract to purchase the new Odyssey system for district and municipal courts — also called “limited jurisdiction” courts — was approved by the JISC and went into effect September 1. The system cost is $22.3 million, with another $1.1 million in maintenance over the five years of implementation. The funds do not come from the state general fund — the system is paid for through the Judicial Information System Fund which collects court fines and fees for the purpose of maintaining working information systems for state courts. The purchase was approved by state lawmakers for the 2019-21 biennium.

The system was developed by Tyler Technologies, a Texas company which also developed the Odyssey case management system now in use by most Washington state superior courts. The system will be configured to meet the unique needs of Washington limited jurisdiction courts, which process about 18 million transactions a month, as well as probation departments.

The first stage of implementation in Spring of 2021 will focus on statewide electronic filing for limited jurisdiction courts. Implementation of the case management and probation systems will begin in early 2022. The project is scheduled to be complete by 2025.

The search for the Odyssey system was overseen by two committees of court officials and staff members from across the state — the Courts of Limited Jurisdiction Case Management System (CLJ-CMS) Steering Committee and the CLJ-CMS Court User Work Group — and numerous other court staff members helped evaluate potential systems. A project team from the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is managing the acquisition and implementation of the system under the oversight of these committees as well as the JISC.

“Our previous case processing system was cutting edge when AOC developed it in 1987, and we appreciate all of the work put into maintaining it over the years, but a modern system is needed to keep up with today’s demands on our very busy district and municipal courts,” said Washington State Court Administrator Dawn Marie Rubio.

“We have had excellent success implementing information systems on budget and on time, as with the recent modernization of the Odyssey system now used by most superior courts,” Rubio said. “We appreciate the significant amount of work by many court staff members in identifying the system needs of limited jurisdiction courts, locating and evaluating a system that could meet those requirements, and getting us to this point of implementation. We are excited to begin.”

More information on the CLJ-CMS Project, which will be updated regularly as the project proceeds, can be found at http://www.courts.wa.gov/?fa=home.sub&org=cljcms&layout=2.