Supreme Court issues new order about court operations

The Kansas Supreme Court issued Administrative Order 2023-CC-074 on Monday, October 16, confirming clerk offices in the appellate courts and all district courts including Rooks County—except the court in Johnson County— remain unable receive electronic filings at this time.

Courts are open and operating, but clerks cannot receive electronic filings or electronic payments. All filings must be on paper or by fax. Paper filings can be hand delivered or sent by mail.

The order declares clerk offices inaccessible because the electronic filing systems in those courts are unavailable. This allows a party to seek relief from a court if their filing is untimely.

“This order and other information on our website will guide court users on our operations while our information systems are offline,” said Chief Justice Marla Luckert. “We continue to serve our communities, but we are using different methods until our systems are restored.”

The Kansas Courts eFiling system has been offline since the judicial branch experienced a security incident late last week. The security incident affected several systems used daily by courts statewide, including the efiling system attorneys use to file documents in cases, the case management systems district and appellate courts use to process cases, and others.

The Office of Judicial Administration has added information to the judicial branch website to help court users while court systems are offline. The Court systems security incident page will be updated as new information becomes available. It includes links to information pages for attorneys and the public who need to interact with courts.

Information circulating publicly about court systems being down two weeks emanates from continuity of operations discussions in the Office of Judicial Administration. By applying a timeline, the office could focus on court and court user needs and how to meet them while its systems are offline.

The Office of Judicial Administration is working with experts from several sources to find out what happened in the security incident, how it happened, and how far it reached. Until those questions are answered, the Office of Judicial Administration can’t predict when the systems will be brought back online.

The network issues faced by the judicial branch interrupted user access to several online systems, including:

• Kansas Courts eFiling, which accepts electronically filed documents.

• Kansas Protection Order Portal, which accepts electronically filed documents.

• Kansas District Court Public Access Portal, which allows searching district court case information.

• Appellate Case Inquiry System, which allows searching appellate court case information.

• Kansas Attorney Registration, which allows searching for an attorney by name or bar number.

• Kansas online marriage license application. Persons can still apply, but the application will not be sent to a district court for processing through the efiling system.

• Central Payment Center, which operates in the Office of Judicial Administration, will not be able to process disbursements on behalf of district courts.

• Kansas eCourt case management system, which district courts use to process cases.

(Note: While experts work to fix the security breach, the court news may be delayed a few weeks in the Stockton Sentinel.)