The new website of the Clermont County Common Pleas Court was recognized as a Top Ten Court Technology Solution by the National Association for Court Management at the NACM’s annual conference in July.
The site can be viewed online at http://www.clermontcommonpleas.com.
The NACM awards are presented annually “to recognize courts that make the best use of technology to improve court services and access to the public.” Websites and other court technology projects are judged for their interactive capabilities (e-pay, e-filing, subscriptions, smart forms, etc.); access to public records and other helpful information; user interface (layout, navigation, ease of use, etc.); optimization for mobile services, accessibility, and the “cool” factor.
Clermont County was in rare company: Other jurisdictions that were honored included the Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts; Dubai Commercial Court in UAE; Superior Court of Orange County, California; and the Ministry of Justice in Rwanda.
Senior Magistrate Harold Paddock and webmaster Robert Frost collaborated on the design and content, as the county migrated its website pages to WordPress, a popular blogging and web design software.
The Common Pleas website has easy-to-find information, such as weekly dockets and grand jury reports. “One of our primary goals from both the legal and the software side of the design process was to make most information available with two or at most three clicks from the home page. We think we’ve achieved that,” Mr. Paddock said.
Stephanie Hess, deputy administrative director of the Ohio Supreme Court, accepted the award on behalf of Clermont County at the NACM’s international convention in Washington, D.C.
A complete list of award winners is available on the NACM website at https://www.nacmnet.org/sites/default/files/Top_10_Tech_Awards-Press_Release.pdf.
The National Association for Court Management, housed in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the National Center for State Courts, is a membership organization formed in 1985 to help court managers improve their proficiency while working with colleagues to improve the administration of justice. With more than 1,700 members in the United States and several countries, NACM is the largest organization of court management professionals in the world.