DocuLex Champions Efficient Case File Management
The Office of the Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, is a state of Florida agency that provides legal representation to adults and juveniles charged with a crime who cannot afford to hire an attorney, and to the mentally ill and developmentally disabled who are subject to involuntary commitment proceedings. The Tenth Judicial Circuit of Florida consists of Polk, Highlands and Hardee Counties, with the current Public Defender being J. Marion Moorman. Since Mr. Moorman's election in 1984, the Office has grown to over 140 employees, including more than 75 lawyers who serve clients in the circuit and county courts of the Tenth Judicial Circuit, as well as appellate clients in the Second District Court of Appeal, the Florida Supreme Court and the federal courts. Public Defenders have both a constitutional and an ethical duty to provide zealous legal representation to every client, and serve as warriors for those in need of a champion.
The Office of the Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit understands how imperative efficient, effective and timely case management can be to the future of those charged with a crime, and, as such, determined the need to access thousands of case files and other documents from multiple locations, over a network, to best represent clients that urgently needed assistance.
The Challenge
500 Cubic feet - 40,000 cases - 1,250,000 images per year. If a document was needed for review, it had to physically be retrieved from a central storage room and viewed on microfilm or paper. Stated Richard Weis, Finance and Accounting Director for the Office, "Clearly we were in need of a better way to manage our case files with the growth of the Office and case load over the last 10 years. I knew that an electronic capture and workflow solution was in order - one that could allow us to quickly convert the closed case files, easily manage day-forward documentation in-house, and index and store all in a secure fashion that would enable us to retrieve anything requested or to be researched at the touch of a button. Plus, we wanted to get away from microfilming for archival purposes."
Continued Richard, "Even better would be to find a solution that enabled us not only to manage case files electronically, but to manage non-case related mail that is received each day - a workflow solution that allows this information to be routed to the appropriate person or department electronically and accessed via special search parameters."
The Solution
"We had been introduced to the DocuLex Goby Capture product a number of years ago as part of an overall case management solution, and discovered that now DocuLex offers an entire end-to-end solution that incorporates Goby Capture and other valuable document management capabilities, called Archive Studio," said Richard. "Archive Studio provides us with a fast, secure and reliable way of storing and accessing our files."
The Office employs Archive Studio by DocuLex in two main areas - case related documents and non-case related documents.
When a case file gets created, a Goby Profile sheet is placed in the file. This is a template included with the Goby Capture portion of Archive Studio that gets added to each document or group of documents that need to be scanned. This template includes selectable custom index metadata, specified by the Office, and determines automatically where these documents should be filed once the case is closed, has reached a certain age, and is ready for conversion. Most of the Office's closed case files are sent out annually to a company that specializes in scanning high volume jobs, and the resulting TIFF images are returned to the Office.
Once received, the Office uses Goby Capture to OCR the TIFF images and convert them to a fully searchable PDF document, then automatically files these PDFs on a centralized server per the pre-determined template specifications.
For documents that the Office receives that relate to a case that has already been scanned, or for non-case related mail that is received each day, two in-house employees scan these documents using Ricoh IS200e scanners at their desks. Other employees use the Office's Konica and Toshiba copiers that are capable of saving scanned images to the Office network.
Goby, running on a central server, processes the documents and sends them to WebSearch, a 100% browser-based component of the DocuLex Archive Studio. WebSearch allows easy search and retrieval of a document, and is designed to search document-specific descriptions or a combination of keywords via a Web browser. WebSearch is permission-based, per the client specifications, to share across the organization.
The Results
Added Richard, "The software we were using prior to deciding upon Archive Studio by DocuLex was only being used for Capital cases and non-case related mail. Outside of this, we had to physically retrieve microfilm from a central storage room, and misfiled documents were extremely difficult to find. In collaboration with DocuLex, our Database Administrator, and our Automated Systems Specialist, we were able to design and implement a document handling system with Archive Studio that allows us to access documents from any location and, if something is misfiled, it can easily be found using WebSearch. A DocuLex representative came to our office and worked closely with us to assess our needs, and the DocuLex technician that provided installation and training was knowledgeable and responsive. Archive Studio is easy to configure and use, and has been totally reliable. The interface is user friendly, and our employees are happy about being able to find things so much more quickly. We now have the ability to use our new Archive Studio system to process not only Capital cases and non-case related mail, but also all closed cases. This amounts to less physical storage space, less time searching for documents, and, as everything is now in an electronic format, a means to recover files in the event of a disaster. This translates to far more efficient representation of our clients."
About DocuLex
Established in 1996, DocuLex provides industry acclaimed document management software. DocuLex's complete solution addresses the business need to effectively manage scanned documents, electronic files and email. DocuLex software is utilized by a wide range of industries, and has a user base that includes everything from small businesses, departments within companies to enterprise-wide installations. Achieve instant document access - anytime, anywhere. For information, visit www.doculex.com.
SOURCE: DocuLex