H-6 Electronic Court Records: Strategies for Balancing Personal Privacy and the Public’s Right to Know

The Conference of Chief Justices/Conference of State Court Administrators Guidelines embody an innovative strategy for building consensus between privacy advocates and transparency advocates in the ongoing debate about public access to electronic court records. They are the result of a policy development effort initially undertaken by the Justice Management Institute and the National Center for State Courts in 2000, and subsequently assisted by funding received from the State Justice Institute beginning in 2001. Conducted on behalf of both CCJ and COSCA, this effort involved many complex tasks, including the compilation of views from key groups along a wide spectrum of opinion. The Guidelines were endorsed by both conferences in 2002. This effort was augmented by a 2005 follow-up report designed to facilitate implementation in three areas: educating citizens about public access issues, offering further thoughts about family court records, and building internal policies for training court personnel in applying public access rules. Both sponsoring organizations continue to assist states and their court systems in addressing these issues and tracking their subsequent development. This program will focus upon three principal themes: 1) how the Guidelines were built to balance the public’s right-to-know in relation to personal privacy needs; 2) the present status of the Guidelines’ adoption at state level as reflected by current policies—four years after the latest progress report; and 3) projected future trends in both law and policy as all 50 jurisdictions may respond to electronic access concerns.