Indigent Defense Commission Online Case Management System
Business Case
The Virginia Indigent Defense Commission (VIDC) provides information technology infrastructure and applications to support to 25 Public Defender (PD) Offices which handle over 105K cases per year in more than 53 jurisdictions across the Commonwealth of Virginia, some in large metropolitan areas and some very rural. Also, as evidenced by several Commonwealth of Virginia budget and legislative proposals, VIDC recognizes potential to expand its services with the addition of future regional offices. One of VIDC's core responsibilities is to provide a Legal Case Management system for the PD offices to input and track case, defendant, witness, victim, and charge information and generate appropriate documentation related to case management from initiation through disposition. Prior to the current solution, VIDC utilized a Legal Case Management system built on the Lotus Notes platform. Though the Lotus Notes application provided the basic functionality 'needed', it required considerable management effort and the synchronization of 25 local public defender office databases to a centralized server. It also required use of a thick software client and a unique user id file. In addition to significant and costly systems management efforts, data integrity was abysmal due to inconsistency of process and disparate naming conventions used between each of the 25 offices. The loose input controls of the Lotus Notes application and little to no field validation only exacerbated the problem. The issues with the data management process and client-server architecture would only intensify with future addition of more PD offices. Necessarily, a web-based Case Management System was implemented to eliminate client-server limitations and to standardize data entry, process, system deliverables, and reporting.
Solution
IDC's Online Case Management System is a secure web-based solution for the input, management, and reporting of legal case information throughout the court process from initiation through disposition. Available to more than 500 users at public defender offices across the commonwealth, the system includes an administrative interface to help IDC administrators centrally manage system requirements, maintain content within the system, update system generated letters and email communications, generate reports, and manage user access and permissions.
Tools
The system was built on a .Net framework and to meet additional security requirements for multi-factor authentication, VI also provides Oracle's Adaptive Access Manager (OAAM) for risk assessment in conjunction with Active Directory Federated Services (AD_FS) for user authentication. Customized scripts and configurations were implemented to further limit system access through IDC approved devices only and to compartmentalize each office's access required to mitigate legal conflict of interest issues.
Results
Reduced hardware and software inventoryIncreased consistency and standardization
- Improved data validation and consistent terminology has created much cleaner and more usable data sets
- Able to standardize and reduce roughly 450 different printable system-generated letters to 15 commonly used letters
- Reporting is now standardized and generated systematically
- Reduced or eliminated costly and time consuming site visitations for system maintenance and upgrades
- Can manage users from a single location
- Password expirations are now enforceable
- User access to hardware and services can now be managed
- Consistent communications and fewer missed events due to automated scheduling and email reminders
- Conflict checking is handled systematically reducing manual effort and error
- Reduced IT Service requests
- Standardized document flow and data entry reduces ongoing training efforts
- Remotely accessible - with portable IDC provided laptops, users can work from locations outside of their respective offices