Big changes in Mineral County District Court

Kathleen Brown was sworn in as Mineral County Clerk of District Court by Judge Robert Deschamp on Dec. 29. She ran unopposed for the position in the Nov. 8 elections and will serve a four-year term. It’s a position she has held since 2006 and was happy to be re-elected. “I love my job and what we do here,” she said.

This year is also starting with some changes. New County Attorney Ellen Donohue was recently hired and will begin next week. Brown was on the search committee and is looking forward to working with Donohue. “She will be a great asset and we can return to some normality up here.”

The department has not been regularly staffed since Marcia Boris stepped down as the county attorney last August. In the interim, Missoula attorney Matt Erekson agreed to help out and started in September. However, he was only able to stay until the end of October. After that, Missoula attorney Kristine Akland agreed to hold the position until it was filled. Akland had previously worked part-time as the deputy attorney for Boris.

“Kristine has done a great job,” Brown said. “And the transition will be great. I’m very positive and excited to get the New Year started.”

Another big change, beginning in January, will be the implementation of an electronic filing system for Montana courts. A pilot program was rolled out in 2015 involving the Montana Supreme Court and a handful of districts, including the 4th Judicial District of Missoula and Mineral County.

The Supreme Court has been using it and now the district courts are ready to begin. Instead of filing paper copies of complaints, motions and orders, attorneys and judges will begin submitting those documents through an internet-based electronic filing manager, similar to the way the federal court system operates.

“Before we had to use mail and it would take a few days,” said Brown.

With electronic filing it will make the process easier for all parties involved, eliminate the lag time of sending and receiving paper documents, and reduce the costs of postage and driving to file documents.

She said it should also be user-friendly enough so that judges can use it from the bench. They won’t have to rely on paper files, but look up cases using a computer while in session. In Mineral County, there can be 20 cases in a day, and in Missoula upwards of 40 to 50 cases a day. At some point, the documents may also be available to the public, if security issues can be worked out.

This program began in 2007 with the appropriation of $1.5 million from the Montana Legislature. The court system hired Thomson Reuters’ LT Court Tech to develop the electronic filing manager. Other counties involved in the program are Yellowstone County Justice Court, the 10th Judicial District of Judith Basin, Fergus and Petroleum counties, and the district courts of the Fifth Judicial District which includes Beaverhead, Madison and Jefferson counties.

Current access is limited to judges, attorneys and court staff.

“We want to have a statewide e-filing portal,” said Montana Supreme Court Clerk Ed Smith in a previous interview with the Missoulian. “This way, when the courts are ready in Montana, we’ll have a system that’s uniform and easy to navigate for attorneys and their staffs.”

Brown said the system is currently used for criminal cases, but it may eventually include civil cases.