The short answer is that everything in the court computer system can be made available. However, there are security and privacy concerns (covered later in this report) that will cause the individual courts to “filter” the information and what can be made available to the public. Courts are usually bound by law as to what they must provide and limited by technology in what they can provide. There are also issues as to what they cannot provide. Among those courts interviewed and the general consensus of previous reports:

Basic Court Information includes location of the court(s), contact information such as the clerk of the court, the supervisors in charge of the various divisions within the court(s), administrative orders, judges opinions,  judges, hours of operation, jury instructions, common questions, and directions to the court.

Case Information may include case number, plaintiff, defendant, dates, documents filed, and attorneys of record. Case information will vary, depending upon the particular court. What is more important is the type of information and how it can be accessed. For example, one court may have the software application tools to allow the public to perform a data field query of last names and then further sort on another data field. Other courts may only allow a single query. 

Calendars may include Judge’s calendars & rotation schedules, holidays the court may be closed, and case management calendars for various courts.

Dockets may include documents filed (either the database index or the complete imaged document), filing date and current status. Again, depending upon the court and the available technology, the queries may vary.

Forms may include standard forms used by the court that could be in either a fixed format (Portable Document Format/PDF), downloadable Microsoft Word® or Corel WordPerfect® format, or hypertext markup language (HTML). High-quality electronic versions of forms and documents that the public retrieves from the court can be provided online. They can even be sent electronically via e-mail, if requested. 

Imaged Documents may include images of the original filed documents. Images are usually much larger files and require a higher bandwidth, resulting in a longer download time.