WASHINGTON – DC Court of Appeals Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby and DC Superior Court Chief Judge Robert Morin today announced that the DC Courts have launched a number of new initiatives to enhance electronic court access and provide more information to the public:

• a completely restructured and user-friendly website with improved access to information. It is a service-oriented site that allows users to search for and find information more easily and includes a new section for self-represented litigants.
  
• a new electronic court schedule information board in the lobby of the Moultrie Courthouse that lists all Superior Court cases to be heard in the courthouse that day, organized by party name, indicating the judge, courtroom and time of hearing; and
• a new online case information system for DC Superior Court that allows online access to criminal, probate, and civil case dockets, as well as images of documents in all civil cases and lower level criminal cases. The Court anticipates adding more cases and case documents over the next few years.

"The DC Courts are ensuring access to justice for all who use our court system. To that end, we have made a number of improvements to ease access to information about the courts. Specifically, these improvements include online dockets in both the DC Court of Appeals and DC Superior Court, with a new multi-lingual website that is more user-friendly. This is in addition to no-cost dispute mediation in both appellate and trial level cases, legal service resource centers, interpretation services, and working with the DC Access to Justice Commission to encourage attorneys in DC to volunteer their services for those with cases before the courts who lack legal representation," said Chief Judge Blackburne-Rigsby.

"I am pleased that these new technologies will make court information more readily available to the public. Our goal is a system that increases transparency, while respecting privacy rights of parties before our court,” said Chief Judge Morin. “More information is now available online, including court documents for the first time, and daily case information is provided on a real-time basis in the lobby of the Moultrie Courthouse."

The website can be found at www.dccourts.gov and the new online docket system is at www.dccourts.gov/eAccess . A User Guide with information on the Superior Court’s new online docket system, eAccess, including how to do searches and which documents are available, may be found at http://bit.ly/2xHl1op, Frequently Asked Questions are answered here: http://bit.ly/2wXmjPc and a video tutorial on the new system is here: http://bit.ly/2upT7jx