On Monday, March 17, 2008, representatives from JTAC and Monroe County Courts gathered in Bloomington, Indiana to review and celebrate new enhancements to Indiana’s Odyssey Case Management System. Justice Frank Sullivan, Jr., chair of JTAC, made the following remarks:
Thank you for spending a few minutes of your lunch hour with us today as we commemorate the three months of hard work on implementing the Odyssey trial court case management system and celebrate the enhancement of Odyssey with new features.
Let me first acknowledge with appreciation the leaders of Monroe County here today—the County Commissioners and members of the County Council—and also the members of the General Assembly, here only a few hours after completing a difficult legislative session. Thank you not only for your presence but your strong support of this project.
Many of you have heard me speak of the Indiana Supreme Court’s vision of equipping all Indiana courts with a 21st-century case management system and connecting each court’s system to each other’s and to those who need and use court information. We gather today on what I consider to be an exceptionally significant milestone in realizing that vision.
Several years ago, the Indiana General Assembly, with the strong support of legislators from both Houses and both parties, dedicated the proceeds of a portion of each case filing fee to this project. In late 2006, the Supreme Court made a special arrangement with the courts and clerk here in Bloomington to serve as the test and pilot county for the initial implementation of the new system. In the middle of last year, JTAC signed a contract with one of the foremost developers of court computerized case management systems, Tyler Technologies, to help us develop, program, and install the new system, called Odyssey. And as everyone here knows, Odyssey went live here in Monroe County right on schedule on December 17, 2007.
Earlier today, Odyssey went live here in Monroe County with a host of new features including those that will further automate everyday court and clerk functions like hearing cancellation notices, case chronological summary updating, and entry of events.
But in addition to celebrating turning on these new enhancements, again right on schedule, this is also a highly appropriate occasion to reflect on the extremely hard work that everyone has put in on this project during the last three months. We all knew that it would not be easy, and in many ways it proved to be even harder than expected. But like a basketball team that encounters unexpected challenges as the season goes along, everyone here has remained loyal to the overall goal of success and worked extremely hard toward it. I know you are all proud of that effort and what you have achieved, and I cannot tell you how much Chief Justice Shepard and my other colleagues on the Supreme Court and I admire you for it.
I can only say that you are laying the groundwork for the single greatest improvement ever in the administration of justice in Indiana.
I would like to present a small token of the Supreme Court’s appreciation for the court and clerk staffs’ contribution to this single greatest improvement ever in the administration of justice in Indiana but before I do, let me ask the leaders of our project to come forward and join me:
From our vendor: Tyler Technologies, Project Director Kristen Wheeler.
From JTAC, our Director of Trial Court Technology: Mary DePrez, and our Odyssey Project Directors, Donna Edgar and Mary Wilson.
From Monroe’s Technical Services Department: Larry Smith, Bill Goveia, and Mike Hert.
From the Monroe Circuit Courts, Presiding Judge Kenneth G. Todd and Court Administrator Bonnie Austin.
And from the Monroe County Clerk’s Office: County Clerk Jim Fielder, and his Chief Deputy, Margaret Cook.
Ladies and gentlemen, from now on, when Odyssey is turned on in the morning—not just in Bloomington but in every court in Indiana where it is implemented in the future—the sign-on screen will feature the historic Monroe County Courthouse. In this small way, we hope, all court users in Indiana in the future of the Odyssey case management system will be reminded of the pioneering hard work of all of you.