Process automation guidance for courts

Who should read this?

• Court administrators
• Court clerks
• IT departments
• Data/research departments

Why this guidance matters

Some operational tasks performed by courts, such as collecting and ensuring quality of court data, processing invoices, and populating reports or dashboards, are consistent challenges because they tend to be time-sensitive, repetitive, and error- prone. These kinds of tasks are excellent candidates for process automation, also known as business process automation or robotic process automation (RPA).

Process automation is a technology that uses software to automate repetitive, rule-based, and error-prone tasks such as data entry or processing transactions. It is already used by courts in places such as Palm Beach County, Florida¹ and Washington, D.C..²Some vendors are also offering process automation to process court filings. 

The advantages of process automation are clear. The work done by software frees up employees to do more human-centered work, such as interacting with court customers. The software can work 24 hours a day, ensuring that tasks are completed timely. They typically work more quickly than humans with greater accuracy. Importantly, they typically operate at the user-interface level, just as a human does, meaning that they can be implemented with little disruption to current systems. 

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