Court records go digital

BY VICTOR G. MIMONI

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 4:02 PM EDT

Justice – in the form of accessible court records – is coming closer to the people of New York City and Queens is leading the way, as finishing touches are being put on a plan to bring the county’s archives into the 21st Century.

In the conference room of Queens County Clerk Gloria D’Amico, her counterparts, senior staffers and representatives of the state’s Office of Court Administration put their heads together to plan the final phase of the project – to bridge the remaining paperwork gap between the old, film-based and the new, digital document storage systems.

Back in 2000, the Queens County Clerk’s office began a project to make digital images of selected records. When the enormous advantages over microfiche or microfilm became apparent, the office began imaging all of its records, not just judicial Orders and Judgments.

“At first I resisted the idea,” D’Amico admitted at the meeting, “but I’m glad you talked me into it,” she added, nodding in the direction of her staff.

It turns out that Queens is within striking distance of “digitizing” the last of its archived paper records before the existing contract expires, which will leave the other four counties to get help with their archives.

Currently, the county staffs are handling the new paperwork as it comes in – a mind boggling 20 million images a year in Queens alone.

The plan also involves the secure destruction of the actual paper files – once the accuracy of the records on removable hard drives is firmly established. “There are multiple levels of redundancy,” said a senior staffer on the project.

As the ultimate goal is a unified system of court record keeping, the spirit of cooperation between the officials responsible for keeping track of mountains of paperwork – and the courts running – was evident, with another county donating their available time on the existing contract to make sure Queens was 100 percent done.

It was pointed out that, since County Clerks charge for copies, the more efficient digital system will pay for itself in the long run – except for the fact that, “The money actually goes into the General Fund and not our budgets,” one counsel pointed out.

THE QUEENS COURIER/Photo by Victor G. Mimoni

New York City’s County Clerks and senior staffers are getting court records into state-of-the-art digital archives. Seated are (from left to right) New York County (Manhattan) Chief Deputy County Clerk James A. Rossetti; Queens County Second Deputy County Clerk Alexis Cuffee; Richmond County (Staten Island) Clerk Stephen J. Fiala; Queens County Clerk Gloria D’Amico; Bronx County Clerk Luis Diaz; Kings County (Brooklyn) Clerk Nancy Sunshine and Kings County Administrator James Blaine.