Deep in inland eastern Washington, not far from the Idaho border, you’ll find the city of Spokane. With its 229,000 residents, Spokane is the second most populous city in the state and the hub of Spokane County. Behind the scenes, a small team is quietly improving the way justice is administered by leveraging Journal Technologies’ eSeries solutions in some unique and noteworthy ways.
Led by Matt Moore, Municipal Court IT Legal Case Supervisor, the legal information technology team is responsible for all case management system deployment and administration, meaning they have a significant impact on the city’s legal operations. Comprised of two system analysts, a database administrator, a business analyst, and Moore (a technologist himself), this team is hands-on with Spokane’s legal technology.
The Municipal Court of Spokane is a relatively high-volume institution, with its three judges and three commissioners each seeing about 100 cases per day. In 2013, the biggest challenge identified within the Spokane judicial system was the fragmented communication between justice partner organizations; data silos hindered the efficiency of courts, supervision agencies, defenders, and other offices. By 2017, the search for a new case management system had begun, with a clear objective: seamless communication and integrated data sharing across all justice partners.
The team chose Journal Tech’s eSeries platform because of its flexibility, configurability, and powerful data-sharing capabilities.
The path to implementation was not without its challenges. Initially, Spokane planned to roll out eCourt, eProsecutor, eDefender, and eSupervision at the same time—an ambitious task. In collaboration with the Journal team, a strategic pivot was made to a phased approach during the planning phase to ensure a successful rollout. March 2021 saw the successful launch of eCourt, with the remaining systems implemented in September 2022.
This phased implementation, though initially viewed as a setback, was ultimately viewed by Spokane as helpful. It provided Moore and his team with the necessary time to manage and iterate workflows within eCourt and identify errors before implementing the other systems. This included working with the Journal eSupervision team between phases, allowing them to share learnings from eCourt and better customize their supervision solution.
Reflecting on the journey, Moore said that it took about 10 months to iron out all the kinks after pushing all four systems live. That may sound long, but he emphasized that solving for your customers’ needs is always a lengthy process: there were processes they didn’t fully understand and workflows they didn’t know were needed until they were fully operational. Once those needs were resolved, the legal IT team shifted their focus to data exchange and cleanup.
Today, Spokane’s system is a model of efficiency and integration. When a misdemeanor case is filed, eProsecutor automatically populates with data from the police department, including reports, citations, and charges. This data is instantly accessible in eCourt and eSupervision, while eDefender receives the information only when the court assigns first appearance, preventing case overloads for public defenders. Judges can set probable cause, pleas, pretrial conditions, and bail, at which point documents are generated and shared seamlessly across systems.
The City of Spokane knows that the legal system will continue to change, which is why they’re focused on data-driven decision making to move their city forward. “As much as you want things to stay the same, they’re not going to,” said Moore. By integrating eSeries data with Power BI, Spokane now has more insight into their defendants. Their visualizations of eSupervision risk assessment data enable targeted interventions, addressing issues like housing, education, and mental health for frequently booked individuals.
Moore’s advice to others embarking on similar journeys is twofold. First, he emphasized that extra time spent on data conversion has a 10x return. When the conversion is as clean as possible, it minimizes the time needed to clean up on the back end, which can take far longer. Second, he believes it is critical to stay involved and learn during configuration. “You can’t just say, ‘Journal, go do this for me.’ You need to be a partner, because that enables you to be that leader going forward.”
As Spokane paves the way for the future of integrated justice, Moore believes this is just the beginning. “The point is, you can do whatever you want with this platform if you empower yourself.”