Warren County officially became the 3rd pilot location for JTAC’s Odyssey Case Management System when they began using the system the week of August 25, 2008. The Judge in Warren County Circuit Court, Hon. John A. Rader, writes a column for the local paper, The Review-Republican, and recently published an item about Odyssey.
Here is an excerpt:
The Clerk’s office interacts with numerous agencies such as the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Department of Revenue, Indiana State Police, Department of Health and Department of Child Services. Transmitting information by paper involves both time and expense and slows down the services required by the public. Warren County Clerk Jacki Brier and her dedicated staff have been at the forefront of utilizing technology to get the job done more quickly and efficiently. Internet based applications have increased the speed with which the citizens of Warren County and those who use government services can interact with the various agencies.
For several years Indiana has been working toward implementing a statewide case management system where all of the courts could be connected to the agencies that they deal with and with each other. For about the last three years, I have been involved in that effort. Trial Judges from various counties as well as Appellate Judges, Clerks and other resource persons reviewed the systems used around the State of Indiana and across the nation. Through some State funding for that purpose and at my own expense, I traveled with a team around the State and to Minneapolis and Boston to view systems in use and to meet with Judges and Clerks who actually used the various systems. Public demonstrations of the systems that were selected as finalists in Indiana were conducted in Indianapolis and after an exhaustive review; we recommended the Odyssey Case Management System from Tyler Technologies, Inc. Our Court should have the Odyssey CMS operational by September.
This web-based program allows the Courts to utilize state of the art programs that are housed in the Indiana Office of Technology without requiring the huge program costs to Warren County. The costs of purchasing and maintaining such programs would no doubt be cost prohibitive to smaller counties like ours.
Odyssey is a case management system as opposed to merely being an information storage system. Once configured and optimized, Odyssey can, among other functions, manage calendars by finding appropriate hearing dates and times, assist in the timely preparation and dissemination of information regarding case events such as hearings and orders; and provide internet public access to the Chronological Case Summary that briefly indicates case events. The public can then find out the status of cases online for most cases except those that are confidential by law or Indiana Supreme Court rules.
