State to finish eCourts expansion in ’25

RALEIGH — All 100 North Carolina counties will use the eCourts filing system by the end of 2025, the Administrative Office of the Courts has announced.

Five groups of counties already have made the move to the electronic document filing system. Another five groups and the North Carolina Business Court will shift to eCourts starting Oct. 14 and finishing in about 12 months, a news release says.

“The Business Court looks forward to transitioning its case filing system into eCourts, thereby completing the creation of a unified electronic filing system for civil cases in the state’s 100 counties,” Chief Judge Louis Bledsoe and Judge Michael Robinson of the North Carolina Business Court said in the release.

About half of the state’s population, including its three largest cities, live in the 38 counties where eCourts has been implemented. The first group of counties — Wake, Johnston, Harnett and Lee — moved to the system Feb. 13, 2023. The most recent group, 11 counties, including Buncombe County, in Western North Carolina, made the transition July 22, 2024.

About 1.3 million filings representing an estimated 5 million sheets of paper have been submitted through eCourts so far.

The release touts other advantages of the new system, including:

• Allowing North Carolinians to access the public portion of the records at any time from any venue or device that can access the system.
• Standardizing court business processes and forms to promote consistency and predictability statewide.
• Connecting eCourts systems with public safety systems to help court officials and law enforcement file and access critical information.
• Updating hardware infrastructure, network bandwidth, and wireless connectivity in courthouses for better and faster internet connectivity for both court officials and the public.
• Reducing the number of returned forms that are filled out incorrectly, resulting in court delays for self-represented litigants.
• Reducing foot traffic in courthouse facilities, shortening lines at security checkpoints and customer service counters.
• Easing the amount of storage space needed for paper records.

“Millions more North Carolinians will benefit from the convenience of digital access to their courthouse in 2025 as momentum builds for statewide completion of the historic eCourts transition in the Judicial Branch,” AOC Director Ryan Boyce said in the release.

For information about eCourts, visit nccourts.gov/ecourts.