May Department Spotlight- Civil and Family Courts

Posted By: Marsha Bills

Civil and Family Courts Are Thriving During Transition
With Help of Technology and Excellent Leadership

The Civil and Family Courts section of the District Clerk’s office remains one of the busiest, with many operational changes as well as a major change in management. Effective April 27, Virginia Etherly left her long-time post as Civil and Family Operations Manager to assume the position of Chief Deputy to Gary Fitzsimmons.

“We have so many projects underway that this is a time of major change for our department staff” says Maria Sanchez, Civil and Family Courts Operations Manager. “But we also have an outstanding team that combines veterans who are providing leadership and younger staff who are working hard to learn new processes, helping us make this transition as smooth as possible.”

Maria reports that the E-Filing effort is moving forward following a successful Continuing Legal Education event on that topic at George Allen, co-hosted by The District and County Clerks and attended by more than 200 attorneys. “We think this event and the word-of-mouth it will generate about E-Filing will help us move closer to our ultimate goal of having paperless courts,” adds Maria.

The Civil Courts have begun implementation of E-Filing and the Family Courts are continuing to make significant and steady progress, in both handling the heaving court loads and in moving toward their goal of going paperless as well. “We’ve already seen enormous benefits of the Digital Courts program, with real efficiencies in the 302nd where we are fine-tuning the process before rolling it out to other Family courts,” says Maria.

“We especially want to recognize the hard work and diligence of Danitra Wilkerson and her team in reducing backlogs and managing loads in the Family and IV- D courts while we go through this transitional period.”

HOME