On April 28 the eCourts system goes live in Halifax and what the Administrative Office of the Courts refers to as Track 8 counties.

The other Track 8 counties are Bertie, Edgecombe, Greene, Hertford, Lenoir, Nash, Northampton, Pitt, Wayne, and Wilson.

Chief District Court Judge Teresa Robinson Freeman told Halifax County commissioners today, “I believe I have some exciting news … We are up to implement eCourts and if you have not heard that you will hear it.”

While it might be called Odyssey or AICS, “We’re all talking about the same thing and that is the complete overhaul of our court system to go paperless,” she said. “If any of you have had to come to court for yourself or a family member — or you were just there with a friend — then you know we have had something called shucks that are paper files of everything that’s ever been filed in the court system. Effective April 28th and going forward the process will officially begin where we are going to go paperless.”

(Further information on Track 8 can be found at this link)

Robinson estimated following her presentation there are thousands of papers filed in the court system.

Preparing for the moment

It has been an overwhelming process, she told the board. “We have been at this and meeting with the Administrative Office of the Courts officials since November of 2024, having weekly meetings to try to prepare for this moment.”

Several other tracks have gone before Track 8. “We are not the first but we are going to be as successful as the other tracks have been.”

The lion’s share of the work has fallen and will continue to fall upon the clerks and judicial support staff. “They have handled this for many months and will continue to do so for several months after we go live on April 28th.”

Freeman said everyone needs to understand that going paperless means “every single file that has ever been filed in the courthouse for so many years even before I was born will at some point have to be scanned into our system.”

 That means effective April 28th if you have to come to court you can’t just add on a case. “Traditionally people have been able to and we have been very lenient with people just popping in, if they missed a court date, or just needed to add on the matter, years later even.”

That ends, she said, “Because we can’t just add on a case and hear it. That case has to have been already scanned into the system — the entire file — because effective on that date as well, judges can no longer use an ink pen to sign orders. Effective on that date every single order that the judge will sign will be signed electronically.”

Calendar limits and backlogs

That means for at least the next three months and continuing for as long as it takes stakeholders getting comfortable with the system there will be mandatory calendar limits. “If you’ve ever been down to the courthouse you know that we sometimes have hundreds, especially on our admin court days, traffic court — hundreds of people scheduled, especially in Halifax County. That will be no more for a very good while because with the new system — until everybody becomes comfortable — we have to impose mandatory calendar limits so that we can get through all of the calendar cases within a single day.”

In short, there will be backlogs. “The last backlog we went into was during COVID and we’re getting ready to go into another one. It is inevitable because of the calendar limits that we’re having to face and because of all the new systems that we’re having to learn.”

Help from the board

The county board, Freeman said, has helped judicial staff to meet some courtroom needs. “We will now need, instead of one clerk in the courtroom at all times — two clerks in order to handle the business. I want to thank you Madame County Manager and others who have addressed those needs because we do have better spacing. I know you’ve addressed the electrical plugs because everyone who comes will be on a computer system.”

There will also be a request for bigger tables to handle all the equipment eCourts will require.

“This is a good day,” the judge said, “Although it’s an overwhelming process that we are undergoing, I want you to be clear that if you have business with the courts any time on April 28th and thereafter, it will not be business as usual.”

For the last two weeks the local court system has had practice courts and training with the Administrative Office of the Courts with their business analysis team and will continue to do that up and through April 28th. “There will also be guests on-site through the month of May throughout our district holding our hands and walking us through this system so that we can try our best to be able to navigate it. Once they’re gone, probably June 1st, we’ll be on our own.”

Freeman said in the long run it will be better for the entire district “because everyone will be able to, including citizens, whether you have business in the courts or not, access information on what's called the portal of our eCourts system.”