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Chicago, Illinois: the third-largest city in the country, home to “The Bean” sculpture, deep dish pizza, and the Chicago Bears. Much of the city falls under the jurisdiction of Cook County, which has more than 5 million residents.
Working at this scale poses a significant challenge for justice agencies like Cook County Public Defender. With operations spanning 12 courthouse locations, the agency is responsible for providing legal representation to thousands of individuals who cannot afford private counsel.
Managing that scale became untenable with their legacy system, so in 2018, the Cook County Public Defender’s Office implemented eDefender county-wide. The agency needed a system capable of helping them manage vast amounts of data and operate more efficiently.
According to system administrator Kofi Agyekum, the platform has evolved significantly in the years since. “Since it was implemented, we’ve done a lot of work to it,” he said. “We’ve added modules and configured functionality to make it work the way we need it to.”
Given the size of Chicago, that flexibility has been key. Using eDefender’s builtin configuration tools, Cook County Public Defender developed specialized workflows for processes like forensic requests and investigation requests. This shift from manual to electronic tracking has resulted in greater visibility and efficiency across the agency.
What does this look like in practice? For investigation requests, a new module allows attorneys to submit electronically, route them through approval chains, and assign them to investigators. These requests are tracked through a centralized dashboard, and leadership can quickly assess trends and make informed decisions.
At a foundational level, eDefender serves as the system of record for all court-appointed cases. Through integrations with partner courts and the sheriff’s office, most manual data entry processes have been eliminated. According to Agyekum, attorneys can now spend more time on actual legal work instead of administrative busy work because “our agency gets the required data every day from the courts, straight into our system.”
The platform also obviates the need for external tracking tools. Previously, attorneys relied on their own individual spreadsheets to manage caseloads, creating major coordination challenges across the agency. Today, attorneys access their caseloads directly within eDefender with a single click, allowing them to securely view assignments or transfer cases.
Accessing the data isn’t where things end for Cook County. “We realized now that we have all this data in the system, we really need to do something with it,” said Agyekum. “That’s where the real value comes from.”
Through integrations with tools like Jaspersoft and Microsoft Power BI, Cook County Public Defender is transforming data into actionable insights. Custom reports provide detailed breakdowns of caseloads to better manage attorney workloads, while interactive dashboards allow users to identify specific patterns.
Using data from the sheriff’s office, attorneys can access real-time custody tracking dashboards. These dashboards allow attorneys and management to explore clients in custody, track releases, and monitor activity across different divisions.
Agyekum’s work demonstrates that when data is captured effectively (and made accessible through the right tools), it empowers justice agencies. Ready access to key data serves as a natural catalyst to unlock new workflows that help organizations better fulfill their mandates.
Cook County Public Defender can now allocate resources more effectively to fulfill their own mandate of serving the people of Chicago, all because they have all the data they need at their fingertips.