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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
REQUESTING A HEARING OF THE LEGISLATIVE AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE TO DISCUSS MANDATORY E-FILING AT THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY
WHEREAS, the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered that Illinois Circuit Courts create an Electronic Filing system (“e-filing”) on January 22, 2016; and
WHEREAS, Illinois Circuit Courts were to implement their e-filing system by January 1, 2018; and
WHEREAS, the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County entered into a contract with On-Line Information Services in June of 2016 to provide e-filing services; and
WHEREAS, in April of 2017, Tyler Technologies signed a $36 million contract with Cook County to provide court docketing services that would include matters filed through e-filing in the Circuit Court of Cook County; and
WHEREAS, to monitor the court docketing services contract, Cook County entered into an agreement with PriceWaterhouseCooper; and
WHEREAS, Tyler Technologies informed the Clerk, under a different contract with the Illinois Supreme court, that it would be unable to complete the payment component of the e-filing system by the deadline; and
WHEREAS, in a November 25, 2017 article in the Chicago Tribune, Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown stated that her office was prepared for e-filing; and
WHEREAS, on December 13, 2017, Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown petitioned the Illinois Supreme Court to extend the deadline for the implementation of e-filing until January 1, 2018 and to allow permissive e-filing until that time; and
WHEREAS, in her petition to the Illinois Supreme Court, Clerk Brown stated that Tyler Technologies has been unable to integrate its e-filing software with currently existing proprietary software in place at the Court and there have been problems with the system’s ability to set dates for case management and with bulk filing; and
WHEREAS, in response, the Supreme Court gave the Circuit Court an extension of six months until June 30, 2018 to implement the e-filing system and included a number of benchmarks, standards and requirements to be met during the extension period; and
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Circuit Court Clerk of Cook County and representatives of On-Line Information Services, Tyler Technologies and PriceWaterhouseCooper appear before the Legislative and Intergovernmental Relations Committee of the Cook County Board of Commissioner to review the implementation of e-filing in the Circuit Court of Cook County; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County be prepared to explain the confusion set forth by the office by initialing indicating that the office would meet the January 1, 2018 deadline for e-filing, only to file for an extension approximately three weeks later.
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