SEVIERVILLE -- The state judiciary is working on several ways to modernize and make courts more accessible, including efforts to put courts online so attorneys can e-file complaints and other court documents, and a task force looking at how to improve access for indigent clients.
Chief Justice Sharon Lee spoke about their efforts at the Sevierville Rotary meeting Tuesday.
Lee -- wearing orange in tribute to former Lady Vols Coach Pat Summitt, who died Tuesday morning -- said they're working on a number of ways to improve the courts in recent years.
They aren't always responding to some major issue, she said -- they are looking to improve the services the courts offer Tennessee residents. "We need to be looking at how we do things to see if we can do them better," she said.
Even the way new justices joined the court has changed: Roger Page was the first justice confirmed under a new law calling for the governor to appoint new justices and the General Assembly to approve them. Voters approved the new law in 2014.
"His confirmation went off without a hitch," Lee said. "I feel really good about the constitutional amendment."
They are currently working to set up the system to allow attorneys to electronically file appellate court documents, and hope to do so for the lower courts throughout the state.
With a handful of appellate courts in the state, attorneys had to physically take complaints and other documents to file them or send personnel to do so. With the e-filing system, they won't have to make that trip.That should help save time and money for attorneys and their clients, Lee said.
"It really revolutionizes the way we practice law and when the lawyers save a ton of money the clients save a ton of money."
They're also working to make sure the courts and just verdicts are accessible to people who can't afford to hire an attorney.
"Overall, our state spends around $9 million on indigent services for people who can't afford lawyers and that's just in criminal cases and a small area of juvenile cases," she said.
Those attorneys are among the lowest paid in the system.
They've created another group to go around the state talking to parties involved in that system about how they can change it, with the hopes of recommending changes to the General Assembly.
"Let's come up with some ideas of how we can better deliver better services to indigent parents and how we can better compensate the lawyers who do it, all in a way that our budget can handle," she aid.
The court established a business court docket in Davidon County that handles business-related civil cases involving at least $50,000 in compensator damages. Those cases can be complicated and time consuming, involving lots of paperwork and laws that judges don't often have to review during typical proceedings.
Another inovation is streamlining the juvenile court system and continuing to focus on rehabilitation for children in the system, she said.
As part of the efforts Tennessee has undertaken to address human trafficking and obtained a grant to work on programs that will help the courts better deal with those issues.
"They're the kinds of cases that can clog up an entire court docket. They can make a judge's head explode if they're not used to dealing with those kind of difficult legal concepts," Lee said.
"We needed to step up and provide a venue or create a forum where these kinds of cases can be resolved."
Tennessee has created other specialized courts such as drug courts, family courts and veterans courts to deal with specific issues, she said, and as she researched the matter she found that 26 other states already have business court dockets.
So a new docket was established and steps taken to help ensure its success, including creating an advisory board of attorneys that practice business law and drafting an exit survey for attorneys who appear in the court.
"The feedback we've got has been very positive and there's been some constructive criticism that we were able to incorporate," Lee said.
Contact Jeff at jfarrell@themountainpress.com, or on Twitter at @jeffmtnpress
