Court leaders urge faster case-management overhaul; say statewide timeline is too slow

Erin Hall, clerk and master for Shelby County Chancery Court, told commissioners the court's case-management system is more than 20 years old and lacks a modern accounting package. Hall said the outdated platform requires manual spreadsheets and workarounds to produce financial reports.

"It's a 20 plus year old system, that all the civil courts use in the civil courthouse," Hall said in her presentation, adding that the system "looks like DOS" and creates limitations for remote work. She told the subcommittee a contractor is being pursued to help replace the system within the next few years.

Hall and other speakers also discussed integration with the county's new enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) system. Hall said integration is a goal so accounting and transfers could be performed electronically — instead of writing checks walked across the street — and said judicial case-management software should be capable of flowing data into the ERP.

Commissioners asked whether the state-led project to create a unified system could solve the problem; Hall said the state has earmarked funding to develop an RFP but estimated implementation could be five to seven years away and said she did not believe the county could wait that long to replace its system.

The discussion touched on cybersecurity and maintenance risks from legacy software: speakers said the old vendor has changed ownership multiple times and does not provide robust support. Commissioners encouraged continued work with the IT steering committee and asked for cost comparisons between repeated patching and full replacement.