The two Houston appeals courts, which carry some of the biggest dockets in the state, didn't make their opinions available on the Internet until last year. While most e-court initiatives have so far been largely local, a broader effort is under way. The aim is a single network capable of processing the roughly 11 million new cases and appeals filed each year. The committee hopes to connect all the urban courts over the next two years, and the rest of the state in the three or so years after that. Public access is a secondary goal, one that officials say will be easier to accomplish if the courts are talking first.
Individual courts have even more ambitious goals.
The Dallas Fifth Court and some at the Supreme Court hope to make it possible to read legal briefs and motions online as early as this year. By most accounts, the Dallas Fifth Court is the model for where e-court planners want the state to go. Two years ago, the court's Chief Justice Linda Thomas agreed to let Charles Matz, a Houston computer consultant, run a pilot project to bring the court online. The savings may offset that. Since the court went on the Internet in the summer of 1997, the court clerks say there has been a drop in the number of routine calls.