The Courts Service has expanded its Courts Portal to receive its first probate applications on a pilot basis. At this pilot stage, the Courts Service is working very closely with a small number of solicitors to register them on the new Courts Portal to support the filing of probate applications online. The purpose of the pilot is to evaluate and validate the initial applications submitted via the Portal by solicitors in the Dublin area, ensuring they are accurately received and effectively processed by the Probate Office. The purpose of the pilot is to learn, adjust and improve based on user and Probate Office feedback, before deploying to the rest of the country.
Speaking about the Courts Portal receiving its first online probate applications Owen Harrison, Chief Information Officer of the Courts Service commented: “This is a real milestone as receiving probate applications online has been much anticipated by ourselves in the Courts Service, solicitors, our Housing for All colleagues and colleagues right across Government. This is only the beginning as we are taking an incremental approach. It is important that we progress and improve the pilot based on user feedback and the experience in the Probate Office. When we reach satisfaction levels on the pilot, we will then roll-out this service nationwide.”
Explaining what this means for solicitors and those going through probate right now, Harrison said: “Apart from the handful of solicitors we are working with on the pilot, others will not notice a difference for the time being. The Probate Office will continue to process probate applications as they usually do.”
Speaking about what this means in the future when the Courts Portal is more widely rolled out Harrison explained: “The ultimate goal in digitising the probate process is to offer users the opportunity to reduce errors and improve efficiency. Part of the project is to ensure that our Portal will be compatible with a data exchange with Revenue. Facilitating the population of the information provided to Revenue on our Portal, should reduce errors and make it easier for those applying. So, for example for solicitors the Portal will help them to process probate more efficiently for their clients”
The Courts Portal, a fundamental cornerstone of the Courts Service Modernisation Programme, is not only going to be available for probate applications but is being rolled out across different areas of law and jurisdictions. A pilot for Circuit Court Family Law has already been introduced and is currently running in Dublin. When ready it will go live nationwide in the coming months. In the next few years across Civil and Family Law, the Portal will allow for e-filing, e-serving, making e-payments and the collection of digital orders.
Explaining how the Courts Service has reached this point, Harrison explained: “We have been working very closely with staff, judiciary, practitioners and users on the development of the new system. We have introduced the new unified case management system (UCMS) to staff and have started the work of replacing 150 legacy systems. We have also introduced on a pilot basis the judges’ view of the system – (Judicial UCMS) for Circuit Court Family Law. We, now, have two online services on the pilot Portal for Circuit Court Family Law and Probate. We are learning a lot from user feedback and updating the system based on that feedback. The process is incremental and iterative, but it means we should be able to deliver systems that better meet users’ needs."
