The Paperless Prosecutor

In September 2007 I was able to attend the National District Attorney’s Association technology conference that was held at the NAC in Columbia, SC. A couple of the sessions focused on paperless prosecutor offices. Jeffrey Sauter, DA for Eaton County, MI and some of his staff explained how their office went paperless in 2004. Kelly Burke, DA for Houston County, GA and some of his staff discussed their plans to transition to a paperless office in the next few months.

When I arrived at the conference, the possibility of moving to a paperless office wasn’t even under consideration. However, after hearing about the positive impact others had already experienced the idea of going paperless seemed like it was a real possibility. I discussed with Jeff and others about what our office already had in place and going paperless not only seemed possible, but a downright reasonable next step.

We’ve been scanning all police reports to pdf since March 2006. A few months ago, Leavenworth District Court began imaging all file-stamped documents and supplying pdf copies via email. Between those two categories of documents, there’s not a lot of additional paperwork that needs to get scanned in order to be made available in digital format.

So, I came home from the conference with a goal in mind…but would my boss and co-workers want to make the transition?