A Quiet Revolution in the Courts: Electronic Access to State Court Records
courts are finding themselves faced with some unexpected consequences of such an open access system as they become increasingly reliant upon the Internet. With caseloads growing each year, the Internet has become a valuable tool for court officials in terms of managing cases in an efficient and timely manner and streamlining document processing. At the same time, courts are using the Internet to give the public electronic access to court records, making judicial proceedings more transparent but also making widely available personally identifiable and sometimes sensitive information that, while legally a matter of public record, used to be practically obscure.