Kilbride
The Illinois State Supreme Court has announced the creation of a committee to study how more court business can be conducted electronically.
The announcement of the formation of the high court's Special E-Business Committee was made by Illinois Supreme Court Chief Judge Thomas Kilbride via press release.
"Simply stated, we want the committee to kick start existing ideas and make e-business and especially e-filing a matter of course, not just a matter of talk, in our Illinois courts," Kilbride said in the release.
E-filing, already in place in several Illinois counties, including Madison and St. Clair counties, could soon be implemented in the state's appellate and Supreme courts, Kilbride said in the release.
The release notes existing efforts in the state's courts but notes a lack of uniformity with regard to electronic court business throughout the state's 23 circuit courts and five appellate divisions.
The Illinois Supreme Court Special E-Business Committee is made up of eight attorneys from throughout the state and members of the Illinois Attorney General's office and Supreme Court's Clerk's and Administrative Offices.
The committee's task, as laid out in the Wednesday release, will be to examine and put in place e-business applications throughout the Illinois courts system.
"This is part of the continuing goal by the Supreme Court to bring 21st century efficiencies to the way courts do business in and age where the practice of law, and just about everything else, have changed because of new technologies," Kilbride said in the release.
A number of other courts use electronic applications to deal with routine court business such as PACER, a system used by the federal courts for document access.
There are currently five e-filing programs currently running the state of Illinois in Cook, Will, DuPage, Madison and St. Clair counties.
St. Clair County began e-filing last year while DuPage was the first county to institute e-filing in 2005.