Pasco’s probate filing process runs on a pre-existing system
Pasco’s probate filing process runs on a pre-existing system
Senior Editor
Lawyers who electronically file probate matters in Pasco County face additional fees and a different process than lawyers anywhere else in Florida.
The issue, according to Pasco Clerk of Court Paula S. O’Neil, dates back to well before the current statewide court electronic system and to the final part in implementing that electronic system — namely providing “judicial viewers” to judges. The viewers are computers that allow judges to call up electronic documents filed through the court system’s statewide Internet portal.
Pasco County (as well as Pinellas County, its sister in the Sixth Circuit) doesn’t have viewers yet, so O’Neil’s office has to print out paper copies of all electronically filed documents and deliver them to judges.
Except for probate.
That’s because in 2005, four years before serious work started on the statewide electronic filing system, the Pasco County Clerk’s Office signed a contract with LexisNexis that provided an electronic filing system for probate court filings. It cost $8 per filing. And any judge with a computer and Internet access could call up probate court documents.
“It’s been a great tool for us, and it’s improved our response time,” O’Neil said. “We’ve gotten letters of administration within an hour and 15 minutes [of the documents being filed].”
“We’ve had judges approve things from Switzerland. We always have judicial activity on weekends,” she added.
Consequently, with permission from the Supreme Court, Pasco has kept the requirement that probate documents continue to be filed through the LexisNexis system. They are now routed through the statewide portal and then reviewed by clerk employees the same as electronic filings in other court divisions, but the probate documents remain accessible to judges via the Internet.
O’Neil said the LexisNexis system will remain mandatory for probate until judicial viewers are installed. She’s currently meeting with circuit court officials to discuss the schedule for installing the viewers.
When that happens, the mandatory requirement to use LexisNexis will be dropped, O’Neil said, although the system may remain operational if lawyers, who have set up their office procedures based on that system, want to continue using it.
Floral City attorney Dawn Ellis, who has a statewide probate practice, said she doesn’t mind using LexisNexis, although she thinks the court system’s e-portal is better. But she’s unhappy about the extra filing fees charged by LexisNexis, which she said can add 15 percent to the total cost of a case.
“While they’re saving money by not having to print paper, it’s $8 whether I file one document or 10 documents. Every time I touch the LexisNexis system, I get billed $8,” Ellis said. “If it made it better for the clerks and judges, why didn’t they absorb the cost? We’re paying LexisNexis to make it better for the Pasco clerks and the judges.”
She did agree probate matters are handled much faster in Pasco than in several other counties.
Bar Board of Governors member Andy Sasso, who represents the Sixth Circuit, said he assumed there was some technical reason for continuing the LexisNexis system after the statewide portal began operations a couple years ago.
He agreed with O’Neil’s assessment, calling it an excellent system that seems popular with the judges who use it.
“It seems to be very efficient. You can file things and sometimes get a court order back in a day or two because judges have easy access,” he said.
Beth Allman, a spokesperson for Florida Court Clerks & Comptrollers, which assists the Florida Courts E-Filing, said there are no other counties that she knows of with such a split-filing system.
