Page 9 - Delaware Lawyer - Summer 2021

mail, docket hard copies, and send the documents along with the defendant’s file up to the assigned judge/commis- sioner. Once the judge or commissioner has heard the matter, issued a decision or signed the order, the hard file goes back downstairs and onto the appropri- ate file shelf.
This process is repeated hundreds of times a week. But once the courthouses were closed to the public, we drasti- cally reduced our staffing in an effort to keep our employees safe. That meant very few employees in the Prothonotary office. At that same time, we had an avalanche of criminal filings — inmates wrote asking for bail review hearings, lawyers wrote on behalf of their incar- cerated clients who wanted to enter pleas or have their sentences modified, and the list goes on and on.
Not unexpectedly, and despite the herculean efforts of our dedicated,
hardworking staff, without e-filing and full staffing, we simply could not pos- sibly keep up with the deluge. But af- ter a few weeks, thanks to the creativ- ity and ingenuity of our Prothonotary and court administration staff, we were able to implement improved processes that allowed us to more efficiently pro- cess the filings. This not only reduced the backlog, but also helped reduce our employees’ stress levels.
The other good news is that long before COVID-19 struck, the Judiciary was working on securing criminal e-fil- ing. That initiative is well underway un- der the leadership of Chief Justice Seitz. Once it is in place, we will never again be vulnerable and disrupted like we were the past year on the criminal side.
Implementing Technology for Remote Proceedings
We needed to identify, acquire, de- ploy and install a lot of technology to
We needed to identify, acquire, deploy and install a lot of technology to enable our employees to conduct court proceedings remotely.
enable our judicial officers and employ- ees to work remotely and to conduct criminal and civil court proceedings remotely. We needed licenses for a vir- tual platform; technology compatible with the technology being utilized by the Department of Correction (DOC), the Office of Probation and Parole, the Department of Justice, the Office of Defense Services, and law enforcement; laptops and remote access to our system for employees; and cameras, screens and microphones for our courtrooms. Pre- COVID, acquiring all of this would have been a challenge. But mid-COVID,
it seemed near impossible.
As the world pivoted to remote
working, the high demand for such equipment and the resulting shortage drove up the costs, and COVID re- strictions disrupted supply chains, caus- ing delays in delivery. Looking back, I don’t know how the Chief Justice, the
SUMMER 2021 DELAWARE LAWYER 7
SAQUAN STIMPSON