BATON ROUGE - The East Baton Rouge Parish Clerk of Court introduced its new system for digitally filing documents this week.

The office is making a switch to an e-filing system for criminal records operations, trying to make communication between law enforcement agencies and the court system as efficient as possible. Employees there electronically transferred their first bill of information to the district attorney's office Wednesday. 

“The District Attorney’s transmittal was huge for us,” Clerk of Court Doug Welborn said. “We are proud to see that our e-filing system continues to benefit our fellow agencies. Each phase of this project has advanced our public safety and public service goals.”

Other features of the new system include case tracking through daily notifications from the sheriff's office to the clerk. With the paperless system, judges can now access and sign information remotely, and attorneys can file pleadings into criminal cases electronically. All law enforcement agencies involved with the 19th Judicial Court can use the system. 

This electronic filing has become increasingly important in the wake of the pandemic, allowing the courts and public to safely conduct business.  

“So many attorneys were able to maintain their operations through our e-filing service last year and have continued to use it since we reopened,” Welborn said. “We look forward to introducing new features soon on our land records side, including e-recording becoming available to the real estate industry and the general public.”