Court docket becomes more user-friendly

January 8, 2015 at 12:02a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County’s Clerk of Courts has launched a new, more user-friendly Internet presentation of the electronic court docket.

The new format, launched Monday, is a precursor to credit-card acceptance and electronic document filing, which will begin this year.

The Courtview system covers the general and domestic relations divisions of the county’s common pleas court and the area courts in Austintown, Boardman, Canfield and Sebring.

The new format features links to records of the county probate court and to those of the Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers municipal courts.

“Court consolidation has been done in Mahoning County, technologywise,” observed Tony Vivo, county clerk of courts.

However, the courts still maintain their physical locations in all of the above communities.

The new presentation displays parties, charges, court events and docket entries for each case on a single page for fast and thorough access. This differs from the previous format, which required clicking individually on separate pages containing this information.

Colleen Ingram, area courts administrator, said she hopes credit-card acceptance for fine payments can begin in the area courts later this month or in early February.

Vivo said electronic document filing will likely begin in September in civil cases in common pleas court.

“We just want to keep up with technology,” Vivo said. “It’s a lot more user-friendly. That’s our goal,” Vivo said.

“The more user-friendly it is for our customers, the fewer calls we get asking us to look up cases,” he added.

“We have a lot of steps to go through. This is the first step” in court technology upgrades, Vivo said of this week’s launch.