Advancing victim safety & court technology through civil protection order portals

Background

Civil protection order (CPO) cases have always raised safety concerns for petitioners and their children — as well as for advocates and court personnel. During the COVID-19 pandemic, courts pivoted rapidly to virtual operations. That shift accelerated the development of CPO portals — digital tools that allow petitioners to access the court remotely.

These portals present a unique opportunity to increase access to court relief while also addressing critical safety and fairness concerns. Petitioners often file without support from an advocate, may be unprepared for proceedings, or unaware that the information they provide could be shared with the respondent. Courts have begun to develop and implement strategies to safeguard parties and improve the user experience — strategies that can be documented, shared, and adapted nationwide.

Our approach

With funding from the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (OVW)¹, NCSC is convening an expert team of professionals and key partners to identify and demonstrate court-based strategies for implementing safe, accessible, fair, and effective virtual civil protection order processes.

Re-engineering business processes

A central feature of the project is documenting current business processes — from initial filing through judicial decision and service — to understand the operational and technical landscape. This includes mapping key roles, data exchanges, and workflows, and surfacing both challenges and opportunities.

Documenting processes helps courts identify inefficiencies, uncover duplications, and establish a common understanding across legal and technical domains. These process maps offer a practical guide to modernizing the CPO experience.

Learning from the pioneers

We've partnered with courts in Arizona, Indiana, and Kansas, each with several years of experience developing and implementing CPO portal technology. Their documented business processes demonstrate how portals can be built using a range of approaches — vendor-developed, in-house, or hybrid — and offer rich insights into what works, and why.

These mentor courts provided detailed reflections on their successes and lessons learned, laying the foundation for the next phase of this project.

Putting knowledge into practice with learner courts

Through a competitive application and review process, three learner courts were selected to receive intensive training and technical assistance. These courts will examine their current processes, revise policies and procedures, and implement technology solutions to improve safety and access. Below the table are excerpts from the court's applications.

Third Circuit Court (Big Island), Hawaii

Submitted by Kari A. Weinberger, staff attorney

The implementation of a protection order portal in the family court will increase access to orders for protection and temporary restraining orders by removing barriers to filing through the ability to file remotely. The portal will make the protection order process less confusing and daunting for petitioners who are anxious or intimidated by the prospect of initiating legal action. A protection order portal will also improve the accuracy, speed, and efficiency of case processing, which currently relies on manual and duplicative data entry, scanning paperwork, and a manual internal tracking process. Integrating a portal into our Judiciary Electronic Filing System (JEFS) would greatly streamline this process by automatically filing submitted petitions, generating court dates and proposed orders for the judge's signature based on user input, and automatically disseminating case documents to the assigned judge, police, and parties.

Palm Beach County, Florida

Submitted by Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller Mike Caruso

Creating an online portal for individual victims to submit petitions for injunction will help us accomplish numerous goals: reduce the petitioner's need to physically come to our office to file a petition for injunction, and increase our efficiency in processing these petitions. Specifically, this new electronic process will allow for judges to more efficiently review petitions and facilitate the issuance of protective injunctions faster. The portal will have an interactive feature that assists petitioners, ensuring the correct forms are completed, which will decrease the amount of time the filer spends completing the application. A petitioner can access the portal wherever and from wherever they are as long as there is internet access. Domestic violence is a serious issue that exists in our communities, and we at the clerk's office want to assure the public that we are continuing to work on making the injunction process as easy as possible for victims. 

Wisconsin Court System

Submitted by Audrey Skwierawski, director of state courts

Restraining orders are a vital tool that empower survivors and courts to craft remedies that enhance safety. Through this project, we aim to create a portal that improves access to justice by helping petitioners better understand the process, navigate it more easily, connect with available advocacy resources, and eFile with the court in one step.

What's next

NCSC will develop guidance and recommended practices that build on the work of both mentor and learner courts — providing a roadmap for courts to adopt user-centered, trauma-informed technology that promotes safety and efficiency.