Family courts in Harris County are in the process of shifting from being largely paper-based to being entirely electronic-based, which is expected to cut costs while increasing usability and efficiency, District Clerk Chris Daniel said.

"The district clerk's office estimates the electronic filings would save it—and taxpayers—about $1.1 million next year," he said. "Over a decade, such savings would amount to $11 million, a third of my office's annual budget."

The district's 24 civil courts already shifted to electronic filing in 2011, and its 10 family courts need to be converted by Jan. 1 to meet a mandate from the Texas Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court requires the state's 10 largest counties to have a system in place that allows lawyers to file court records online. Daniel said Harris County is going above and beyond that requirement by removing paper records from courts entirely.

"The clerk could, in theory, download the document that has been filed electronically, print it off and store it as a paper file for the judge," he said. "You're still dealing with paper, so the costs of printing, maintaining and rescanning are still there. We want to eliminate the need for paper records throughout the system for the judge, clerk and court reporters."

The changes will expedite the filing process for lawyers by making it easier to file cases, Daniel said. Those benefits would also extend to people representing themselves. The Office of Court Administration will supply judges with computers and equipment needed for viewing electronic court documents.

"I think this is going to revolutionize the courts," Daniel said. "From what we've seen, attorneys are able to be more productive—in filing more cases or devoting more attention to clients—because they no longer have to go to the courthouse to physically handle documents."

The plan is based on a similar conversion that took place at the federal level through the PACER system, which stands for Public Access to Court Electronic Records.

"We saw a dramatic leap in usability and speed of justice in the federal courts," Daniel said. "I anticipate there will be a similar upgrade both in usability and speed of justice in our courts."

The state contracted a Plano-based technology company, Tyler Technologies, to create an electronic filing system called TexFile, where all civil and family court documents are filed.

"They are responsible for building the main monitor where attorneys file documents, and we have to build the receiving portion as a part of the mandate," Daniel said.

Daniel said the conversion process is extensive, but the district is under budget and ahead of schedule. The total cost across the county—including for the county IT department, county clerk, district clerk, increasing bandwidth and the process of physically scanning existing documents—comes to about $5.5 million, Daniel said.

"We anticipate being complete and having a soft go-live at the end of November so we can work out any unanticipated kinks before we have the mandatory go-live Jan. 1," he said.

Although the Texas Supreme Court mandate does not apply to criminal courts, Daniel said he expects that to be the next step.