The majority of legal cases in California begin in one of the state’s 58 superior courts. With facilities in more than 450 locations, the superior courts hear both civil and criminal cases, as well as family, probate and juvenile cases. The superior courts make up the largest part of California’s judicial system—which is itself the largest in the United States. Full story »

Thinking of a traditional courthouse records room might conjure up images of file cabinets overflowing with folders, but that’s not how it works in York County, PA, where staff have used technology to streamline the thousands of cases that pass through the court system each year. Full story »

Steve Senkle, Information Systems Manager, City of Claremont, CA

As a former Claremont Police Officer, I remember what a hassle it used to be to get ahold of police records. There was always a long line of people at the counter in the records department, and it would take considerable time to pull and photocopy the original reports. More often than not, we’d then have to fax the report to someone, and because some of the reports were 100 or more pages long, that process took a lot of time.

In 1998, we started scanning our crime reports, traffic accident reports and field interview cards into Laserfiche. We chose Laserfiche primarily because of its powerful search capabilities and because of how easy it is to get documents into the repository and organize them once they’re there. We also knew we’d be able to use Laserfiche in tandem with our other software applications, including our police department’s CAD-RMS. Full story »

Criminal trials are notorious for the excessive amounts of paperwork they generate. But in Eaton County, MI, prosecuting attorneys are going to court with laptops instead of briefcases full of paper files—an advantage that has led to better communication, easier pretrial conferences and quicker case resolutions. Full story »

A lot of people associate an electronic document management system (EDMS) with the goal of realizing the “paperless office.” But as the St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Office shows, it’s possible to realize all the benefits of an EDMS—including greater staff efficiency, smarter work processes and lower overhead costs—without entirely doing away with paper copies of important documents and records. Full story »

Police work can sure look glamorous when TV and movie stars chase bad guys on the streets of San Francisco. But for veteran SFPD Lieutenant Jack Ballentine, the reality was a massive paper chase with stacks and stacks of police reports waiting to be indexed, photocopied and distributed. Police reports by the thousands were clogging the wheels of justice and creating delays in readying criminal cases for court. Full story »

When San Luis Obispo County inked a deal to install Laserfiche document management software, all it had in mind was making life a little easier for couriers running paperwork back and forth to the District Attorney’s office.

They never knew it could help them fight crime. Full story »

Running a jail is plenty tough without the paperwork problems.

Yet there it was, the stairwell paper shuffle, an extra daily challenge for the staff of Washington state’s Cowlitz County Jail. Full story »

With more than 6 million pages of records and 225,000 audio files, the City of Riverside’s document management solution arms police with a vast reserve of case knowledge. It also simplifies the work of records staff and helps the entire department get more from every budget dollar.

Records Manager Roz Vinson and Captain Mike Blakely reveal how the Riverside, CA, Police Department took bold first steps and now makes great strides in quality of service to officers and the community. Full story »

As part of the City of Wichita’s enterprise Laserfiche document management solution, their Web-based accident report system establishes a new source of revenue, saves significant staff time and demonstrates the value of integrated systems to both the City and its citizens.

Call it e-government, or simply call it a smart way to get things done. Here’s how Imaging Analyst Cliff Thomas and his colleagues at the City of Wichita got beyond the buzzwords and made it happen. Full story »

It’s any cop’s nightmare. A serial killer who disappears a quarter century ago pops up again, taunting police with clues about unsolved murders. But it’s not a nightmare; it’s a real case unfolding in Wichita Kansas.

Wichita IT analyst Cliff Thomas became part of the search team when local detectives and FBI agents arrived in his office. Wichita police reports stored in Laserfiche digital records management system contains clues needed to break the case, they said. They’ve been studying Laserfiche files daily ever since.
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Police work involves much more than chasing the bad guys. Routine citizen requests for reports must be honored. Statistics must be kept. Case files must remain orderly and accessible.

In the past, officers at Burlingame and Albany Police Departments in Northern California needed to take time out of their day to ensure that the paper was in order. In most cases, officers didn’t have time, and the department’s files became hard to locate and disorganized.
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Starting with fewer than 1,000 pages earlier this year, the Web site of the Collier County Clerk of Courts recently surpassed 80,000 pages in size, making it one of the largest full-text-searchable repositories of local government public records anywhere.
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