Texas Supreme Court Judicial Committee on Information Technology
By Julie Wade, ACED
The third part of our series on technology in the Texas judiciary focuses on the Texas Supreme Court Judicial Committee on
Information Technology (JCIT), who they are, what they do, and the impact of their role in automating the Texas court
system.
To bring you this article, I talked with Peter Vogel, a partner with the law firm of Gardere, Wynne & Sewell LLP,
Dallas, who has been involved with the computer industry and electronic information since 1967, and who is chair of the
Committee and has been involved with JCIT since its inception. Mr. Vogel also teaches courses on the Law of eCommerce as an
Adjunct Professor at SMU Dedman Law School, and is on the founding Board of Advisors of the SMU Computer Law Review and
Technology Journal. In addition, Mr. Vogel serves as Special Master to assist our courts with electronic evidence, and he
serves both as an Arbitrator and as a court ordered Mediator in Internet, intellectual property, and computer technology
litigations. In June 2004, Mr. Vogel received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Promoting Technology in the Law from the
Computer & Technology Section of the State Bar of Texas.
Background
The formation of JCIT began as a task force in 1995, when the Texas legislature provided the Supreme Court with the
authority and funding to conduct four studies, one of which sought to look into the state’s present and future information
technology needs for the judiciary. The Supreme Court asked Mr. Vogel and the other task force members to consider these
needs, devise a plan and report back to an interim committee of the legislature with their recommendations. In 1996, the
task force members recommended that “JCIT be created with a small group of 15 so that they would be more nimble and better
able to give advice to the Supreme Court,” said Mr. Vogel. So, in 1997, the JCIT was created by the 75th
Legislature to “establish standards and guidelines for the systematic implementation and integration of information
technology into the trial and appellate courts in Texas.” See JCIT Resolution, Shared Justice System Network, adopted June
28, 2002. “The JCIT supports and will work toward the development of a unified state telecommunications network to satisfy
the judiciary’s needs for statewide access, integrated justice, data sharing, electronic government initiatives, standards,
open systems architecture, interoperability, and state-of-the art telecommunications services.” Id. The JCIT now operates
under Section 77 of the Government Code and is funded by the state and operated by the Department of Information Resources
(DIR). The standards written by the JCIT include the electronic filing of documents with courts. See § 77.031, Texas
Government Code.
Pursuant to Section 77.011, Government Code, the following persons were appointed members of the Judicial Committee on
Information Technology by the Chief Justice of The Supreme Court of Texas, being “representative, but not limited to,
appellate court judges, appellate court clerks, district court judges, county court judges, statutory probate judges,
justices of the peace, municipal court judges, district attorneys, court reporters, court administrators, district or county
clerks, members of the legislature, attorneys, and the general public.”
The terms of the following members end August 31, 2009:
- Honorable Brian Quinn, Chief Justice, 7th Court of Appeals, Amarillo
- Honorable Mike Cantrell, County Commissioner, Dallas County,
Dallas
- Honorable Scott Hochberg, State Representative, District 137, Houston
- Honorable Jeff Wentworth, State
Senator, District 25, San Antonio
- Honorable Lamar McCorkle, Judge, 133rd Judicial District, Houston
- Honorable Ronnie McDonald, County Judge, Bastrop County, Bastrop
- Honorable Jay Johannes, Assistant County Attorney, Colorado County, Columbus
- The terms of the following members end August 31, 2011:
- Honorable Gary Harger, County Court at Law, Nolan County, Sweetwater
- Honorable Linda Penn, Justice of the Peace, Bexar County, San Antonio
- Honorable Berta A. Mejia, Presiding Judge, City of Houston Municipal Courts, Houston
- Honorable Edward E. Wells, Jr., Clerk, Fourteenth Court of Appeals,
Houston
- Honorable Amalia Rodriguez-Mendoza, District Clerk, Travis County, Austin
- Bob Wessels, Criminal Courts Administrator, Harris County, Houston
- Peter Vogel, Partner, Gardere Sewell Wynne LLP, Dallas
Mr. Vogel serves as Chair and Mr. Wessels as Vice-Chair of the Committee.
The following individuals serve as non-voting liaison members, at the pleasure of the Chief Justice:
- Honorable Larry Myers, Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals
- Honorable David Evans, District Judge, Tarrant County, Fort Worth
- Honorable Frank Summers, County Judge, Milam County, Cameron
- Honorable Blake Hawthorne, Clerk, Supreme Court of Texas, Austin
- Honorable Louise Pearson, Clerk, Court of Criminal Appeals
- Honorable Linda Ueker, District Clerk, Kerry County, Kerrville
- Honorable John Warren, County Clerk, Dallas County, Dallas
- Honorable Dana DeBeauvoir, County Clerk, Travis County, Austin
- R. Michael Eastland, Director, North Central Texas Council of Governments, Arlington
- Gary Hutton, Civil District Court Administrator, Bexar County, San Antonio
- Jay Johnson, Education Program Manager, Texas Association of Counties, Austin
- Penny Redington, Executive Director, Texas Association of Regional Councils, Austin
- Carl Reynolds, Administrative Director, Office of Court Administration, Austin
- Shelia Bailey Taylor, Chief Admin. Law Judge, State Office of Admin. Hearings, Austin
- Mark Unger, The Unger Law Firm, San Antonio
Source: Orders in Miscellaneous Docket, http://www.courts.state.tx.us/jcit/members.asp
JCIT Role
According to Mr. Vogel, the Committee’s focus has not changed much since 1997 when JCIT was created, in that “our general
purpose is to try and help automate the court system in Texas and put internet on the desktops of all 3,271 judges and
justices in 2,691 courts across the state.”
There are 254 counties in Texas, and more than 1,100 cities, each of which locally funds its courts’ computer
systems. The JCIT has to depend on local commissioner’s courts and city councils to implement technology for our courts, so
they work closely with these bodies to help add more technology. “When it comes time to make important decisions, we get
them involved with our Committee and with the Office of Court Administration (OCA) so that everything gets done in an orderly
fashion,” Mr. Vogel said.
To accomplish this, JCIT has been working closely with the Texas Association of Counties to put high speed internet in
more than 60 counties around the state. Additionally, “JCIT helped set up state-wide contracts with Lexis and Westlaw so that
all judges, prosecutors, public defenders and clerks have an unlimited amount of internet access for a flat amount per
month,” Mr. Vogel said.Before that, each individual judge had to buy his or her own contract.
JCIT also coordinates all 16 of the courts of appeals for their technology. In the past five years, they have
implemented a new case management system with new hardware, and “as they get new hardware, we take the old hardware and give
it away to judges around the state,” says Mr. Vogel. “We’ve provided almost 500 computers to a variety of different judges
and courts all over the state that are hand-me-downs, but they are better than what people had before,” Mr. Vogel said.
Electronic Filing
Since the initial $9.8 million appropriation by Texas legislators, the JCIT has successfully developed and implemented a
statewide computer system capable of processing the over 10 million new cases and appeals that are filed each year. This
process began in 2001, when the JCIT endorsed TexasOnline (www.texasonline. com) as the electronic filing manager provider to
act as an advisor and assist with establishing the policies, guidelines, rules and standards for electronic filing. KPMG
(now BearingPoint) was hired to fund and deliver, among other things, the case management system software, including document
format interfaces and transmission envelope data using approved standards, install connectivity to courts and clerks as
required for the system, and provide an open architecture that allowed filers to use any electronic filing service provider
that meets with the JCIT standards and coordinate the interface with each electronic filing service provider.
In May 2003, Fort Bend was the first county to go online with the Texas eFiling system, and with the click of a mouse,
Houston attorney Riecke Baumann became the first eFiler in the state, assisted by Fort Bend County Clerk, Diane Wilson.
“Now we have 31 of the state’s 254 counties online with eFiling for their trial courts, which represents about 260
different courts and two-thirds of the population of Texas are covered with that,” said Mr. Vogel. JCIT’s work is
continuing. “As of January 2008, we are also going to be responsible for implementing an eFiling for the 821 JP courts
around the state,” said Mr. Vogel. Like the voluntary eFiling in the district courts, it is unknown how many JP courts will
sign up immediately, “but it is available for people to file JP pleadings there.”
Electronic Case Filing Service Providers
The Texas Legislature requires all state agencies to use TexasOnline for eGovernment activities. Mr. Vogel reported to
the State Bar of Texas that in 2005, eGovernment transactions on TexasOnline topped the $2 billion mark. TexasOnline delivers
eFiled documents to all county and district clerks as the Electronic Filing Manager (EFM). As the EFM, TexasOnline gets
electronic documents from various Electronic Filing Service Providers (EFSP), through which lawyers deliver their documents
electronically for filing with the courts. Every lawyer or law firm needs to sign up with one of the approved EFSPs, which
include: American LegalNet (U.S. Court Forms), CaseFileXpress, Court File America, eLaw Services, One Legal, MyFileRunner,
and ProDoc. The total cost to eFile ranges between $6 and $16. Each county or district clerk receives $2 of the fee,
TexasOnline receives $4, and the EFSPs are allowed to charge up to $10. TexasOnline also allows electronic service of
parties to a lawsuit, which will greatly speed up the time for service on corporate defendants.
The eFiling convenience is attractive for paralegals. However, one perceived drawback is that once we pay the initial
filing fees for a petition and the eFiling fees for filing documents, we also have to “pay for view/print” when we want to
access a document online to the various counties. To get to the ultimate goal for eFiling—for all trial court pleadings and
trial records filed electronically in the municipal, JP, county, district and appellate courts—all the fees and access needs
to be constructed on a fair and consistent state-wide basis. The day is coming when we will be able to download a deposition
of an expert online, or pull up the transcript from someone else’s trial, and review the petition and other court filings.
Mr. Vogel said he appreciates how much time and energy paralegals devote to assisting in the filing of cases, and he
thinks that eFiling has been something that has been helpful to the paralegal community in general. Alleviating the time one
spends at the copier is one benefit of eFiling and he appreciates everyone’s work in making eFiling a success. Mr. Vogel
acknowledged that he is aware that the eFiling service providers routinely recognize the top filers of the month, most of
whom he said, “are paralegals, the ones that are actually doing the work.”
You can learn more about how TexasOnline eFiling for courts has improved both the efficiency in the courts and the
daily lives of paralegals throughout the state at www.texas.gov.
Julie Wade, ACED, is a paralegal with Harrison, Bettis, Staff, McFarland & Weems, LLP.
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