TOPEKA — The Kansas Supreme Court announced today it has selected a vendor to provide a centralized case management system that will allow all district and appellate case data to reside on a single web-based platform and transform the way the state court system serves the people of Kansas.
The court selected the Odyssey Case Manager™ developed by Tyler Technologies of Plano, Texas, paving the way for the project to move into contract negotiations.
"Of the options offered, the Odyssey system most closely meets the needs of our district and appellate courts, the legal community, and the public," said Chief Justice Lawton Nuss. "It will require some customization, as we would expect with any off-the-shelf product, but it's an evergreen solution that won't require us to make costly upgrades every few years."
Odyssey was recommended by the eCourt Steering Committee, which was formed in 2015 to identify key requirements for a centralized case management system and to review proposals made by vendors through a competitive bid process.
Justice Dan Biles serves as chair of the committee and its members include representatives of the appellate and district courts, including justices, judges, court administrators, clerks, and information technology staff. eCourt subcommittees with wider ranging representation of court personnel and members of the legal community focused on specific areas such as infrastructure, requirements, and rules, and their findings were reported to the steering committee.
“Odyssey will integrate well with our existing electronic document filing system to create a central case processing environment amounting to a statewide web-based courthouse," Biles said. "We anticipate this will improve overall court efficiency and ensure that judges have complete, real-time information with which to make the most effective dispositions."
Tyler Technologies said it will offer at a discount its prosecutor module within the Odyssey suite to any district or county attorney offices that want to use it. This will encourage greater statewide usage of the technology for a significant portion of the court's caseload.
The installation of the centralized case management system is a key component in the Kansas Supreme Court's eCourt plan. It will complete the conversion from local, paper-driven processes to a statewide electronic one. It will provide attorneys, judges, and court personnel using an internet connection immediate access to authorized case information, details, and records from across the state.
The primary goals of the centralized case management system implementation are to:
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Improve case processing in the district and appellate courts.
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Increase the efficiency of information delivery to district and appellate court judges.
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Increase operational efficiency and effectiveness through automating certain activities and streamlining other operations.
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Improve data quality and integrity. Improve performance measurement, analysis, and reporting through enhanced information collection, storage, retrieval, and analysis.
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Enable work sharing between district courts, primarily among clerks and court services officers.
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Maintain and improve data sharing between various governmental and public entities. Maintain and improve the ability to process electronic payments.
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Enable web-based sharing of public information.
The conversion to the centralized case management system is expected to take three to four years. Once the system is designed and completed, it will be launched in pilot courts before a statewide rollout.
The 2014 Legislature established the Electronic Filing and Case Management Fund with deposits from docket fees dedicated to finalizing the efiling project and implementing centralized case management under the Supreme Court's eCourt plan. By statute, each year through fiscal year 2019, the first $3.1 million received in docket fee revenue will be deposited into that fund. In fiscal year 2020 and later years, the first $1 million in docket fee revenue is directed into the fund for things such as maintaining eCourt components.