There is pending in the New Mexico legislature a proposal that would have the effect of shutting down e-filing.

A state legislative analyst concludes in this analysis that a shutdown would have negative financial impacts.

Some points made:

• Courts that have deployed systems are handling more cases with lower total budgets.  That is not the case with other courts
• Attorneys are likely to reap savings
• There are less errors
• There is back-up of data.

Interestingly, however, most of the arguments depend on parallel modernization of the case management and document management systems.

The analysis is obviously particularly powerful, coming as it does from a legislative analyst, rather than an interested agency.

Bottom line conclusions:

• “Elimination of e-filing, particularly after investing significant resources over several years, would be inefficient, wasteful, and would shackle courts to antiquated paper processes for years to come.” (page 3)
• “Elimination of court e-filing in New Mexico will significantly reduce potential automation performance gains through elimination of wasteful, burdensome manual processes through automation.” (page 4)
• “According to the AOC, the elimination of court e-filing, after so much has been invested, may discourage other New Mexico State agencies from implementing technical programs that will provide enhanced services and efficiencies to constituents by greatly increasing the risk of possible program failure as a result of legislation.” (page 4)

This document may well be useful to show those in other states engaged in fiscal analysis of electronic filing and court system upgrades.