efiling–one of the MOST pressing problems in state courtby jmdenison |
Dear Readers;
From the time I was admitted to the bar way back in 1985, one of the problems I found is that when attorneys made errors or forgot something or no longer wanted something in the file, it would just appear or disappear!
In 2000 all the Federal Courts went to efiling on a system called Pacer. Now, I am certain that's because efiling is immune to court record tampering and I submit for your amusement the fact that federal court went to efiling first is because that system abhors file tampering, whereas 10 years later in most of Illinois, the system is not efiling, there is no public access to most of the system on line and the court's filing system in Illinois is a dinosauric, antediluvian tragedy which I have been ticked off about since 2000 when the federal court system went to efiling but the states are lumbering along.
I know this will put a ton of (unskilled, paper shuffling) file clerks out of business in favor of a rarified smaller group of IT specialists, but civilization moves ahead in time with or without you.
Small children know how to operate a cell phone, text, tweet, facebook, myspace, build and operate their own webpages, etc. but our nation's state court system simply cannot tolerate such forward thinking.
And in case you're wondering about all those 80 + year attys toddling about federal court, yes, Virgina, they finally let them forego Pacer and walk up to the pro se desk with all the other pro se'ers and file there. I don't personally have a problem with that. I think if an older attorney files an affidavit that he or she (but that was a time when women could not be attorneys, but I will save that for another post), still thinks a post is something you hitch a horse to, and a tweet is something birds do, and myspace refers to the bathroom or something, by all means I think THEY and only such attorneys should be allowed to still paper file anything.
Getting back to my point, it truly irks me that while Obama has mandated EMRS or electronic medical records by 2014, where is our nation's court system on this position?
Why is there no hue and cry that court records and files MUST be electronic by that date also.
see the article at:
And before you think that HIPAA is any great shakes, you should know that during a recent case I had taken on briefly, I was shocked to find out that HIPAA has no remedy! That's right folks. If your doctor, pharmacist or any other health care provider publishes your medical records online to secure payment because you did not pay a bill--nothing to sue over. It's true. There's nothing in the statute, and only 3 Illinois cases have looked at this and the Ill. App. Ct. said, hey, there's no remedy for a HIPAA violation. So next time you're at your docs and they blame something irksome on HIPAA you can just turn to them and say, so what? There is no remedy and no violation and if you wanted to, you could paper the bathroom walls with any medical record you want and I can't do anything about it, so don't blame HIPAA. I believe HIPAA was created so that insurance companies could freely exchange med info to slap unsuspecting insureds with the dreaded "pre existing condition" and lying about your med records to deny or increase your coverage. I guess with Obama, that's dead, but HIPAA is not and it only allows insurers to freely pass around your medical information DESPITE the fact it was touted as a law to protect the consumer!
Go hug a lawyer today for telling you the truth. The statute was a scam and should be repealed. What a load of junk.
And where was AARP on this issue when they recommended HIPAA? Out selling overprice medicare supp insurance, that's where they were.
Getting back to efiling, I know that the Rockford court system in Illinois was granted $80 million to implement it and what they have is a horrid sham. Well, except for the fact I have been in Rockford and the Winnebago court system and every person out there can tell horrible stories of being shafted by a corrupt court system.
This has to end. Obama, get in there and give us CLEAN court systems via electronic filing.
I have talked to the dudes at Pacer. They claim they can come in and within a month set up a court filing system on efile from soup to nuts, in about a month and for minimal cost.
What is going on with our court system, that's what I want to know.
thanks for listening
JoAnne
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