Dear Bar Leaders,

This letter is to follow up on the OSB/OJD eCourt Task Force meeting on September 21st. As a reminder, the next two meetings of our task force will be October 18th and November 15th. These will both be at 1:30PM at the OSB Center in Tigard. These meetings are open to the public and we encourage your participation and input on the proposed UTCR changes. We encourage everyone to review the attached materials and to provide comment.

At yesterday’s meeting representatives of the OJD brought the task force up to speed on the general framework of the recommendations made by the Oregon eCourt Program’s Law and Policy Workgroup. The major issue at hand that was discussed at yesterday’s meeting, and which will continue to be discussed at the next two meetings, are the rules that relate to access to electronic documents through the eCourt system, including requirements that will be placed on practitioners in order to address concerns related to inappropriate dissemination of personal information.

Lisa Norris-Lampe went through an informative Powerpoint presentation, which I’ve attached to the same email to which we’re attaching this letter. If you didn’t see the Powerpoint, it may be helpful to review that before you tackle the entire (and much longer) report from the Law and Policy Work Group.

In particular, I’d like to bring your attend to three specific slides in the presentation that are helpful for understanding what information is or is not likely to be available over the internet, and why:

  • Slide 8 – This slide explains the default rule – that generally court documents that are available over the counter at your courthouse will also be available online – and then it lists the 4 basic exceptions to that rule.
  • Slide 9 – This slide explains what is meant by “Protected Information” and includes examples.
  • Slide 14 – This slide explains the proposal that court documents will generally be less available online in Domestic Relations, Probate and Tax cases, and how that will work.

At the next two eCourt meetings we will be discussing in detail some of the recommendations in this report. This is your chance to weigh in on the recommendations that are being made. If you have comments or concerns about anything in the report, please email them to Matt Shields at . If you would like your comments to be available for consideration at the meeting, please provide them in writing at least one week prior to the meeting date.

The focus of the discussion at the next two meeting will be as follows:

October 18th – Discussion will focus on Sections 3, 4, and 6 of the attached report. This covers some of the background principles underlying the recommendations, as well as the recommendations that came out of the substantive law groups. Additionally we will discuss proposed amendments to existing UTCRs.

November 15th – Discussion will move on to Section 7, which is the proposed UTCR 22. This section includes requirements that practitioners will need to follow regarding segregation and redaction in court filings, as well as rules regarding which documents are accessible to which system users.

This schedule is subject to change, but it is our intention to get through all of the material and be able to provide high quality feedback to the OJD before the end of the year.

If you have any questions or need any additional information, please let us know.

Thank you,