Baltimore City to roll out electronic court records system in 2024

Baltimore City will become the final jurisdiction in Maryland to implement electronic filing of court records on May 6, 2024, the Maryland Judiciary announced.

The date will arrive almost a decade after electronic filing was first piloted in Anne Arundel County in October 2014.

“We’re very excited about going live in the city,” said District Court of Maryland Chief Judge John P. Morrissey, who has led the statewide transition to Maryland Electronic Courts, or MDEC.

“We’re looking forward to making sure the entire state is on MDEC,” he said.

Electronic filing is now required in every other jurisdiction in Maryland. The largest jurisdictions came last: Prince George’s County joined MDEC in October 2022, Montgomery County in October 2021 and Baltimore County in February 2019.

Baltimore City will be the largest implementation of MDEC yet, Morrissey said. It will require a massive effort to prepare the city’s existing records for conversion into the new system.

Court staff have already spent time analyzing what physical infrastructure will be needed to transition the city’s courts to electronic filing, Morrissey said. Several local “MDEC specialists” have also been trained and will assess how data transfers over to the new system in a series of tests before the launch date, he said.

MDEC allows attorneys to file documents electronically and view court records online in cases they are participating in.

“On the court side, it allows us to maintain everything electronically,” Morrissey said. “It takes a little while, but gradually there’s very little paper.”

The switch will be a welcome relief for attorneys and litigants who use the Baltimore City court system, said Latoya Francis-Williams, a defense attorney who practices in Baltimore.

“It is definitely time for Baltimore City to step into 2023,” Francis-Williams said.

The current system, which still relies on paper filings, is antiquated and can sometimes create problems with serving documents efficiently, she said.

“From the defense standpoint, it is a dream” to be able to file and serve documents electronically, she said. “I’m very happy for the litigants and more importantly, I’m happy that justice is coming step by step.”