As reported in the Washington Post, the SC Superior Court is now offering chat informational services.

D.C. Superior Court officials on Tuesday announced a new online Web chat feature where court users can ask questions of court employees about their cases within the civil division.

Individuals with cases in small claims court (involving disputes of $5,000 or less), landlord and tenant, and civil actions ( involving disputes of more than $5,000) can access the various Web chats through the court’s main Web site.

 Of course, every court should be offering this service — there are several advantages of chat, two of the biggest are that the litigants get a full text record of the interaction that they can review later, and that supervisors can review the chats for quality.  The use of the stored answers can make chats much more efficient that traditional phone info services, and produces higher quality from volunteer information providers.

In terms of expansion, it should not be forgotten that chat — and indeed phone hotline services — may well be more efficiently be provided that locally based services.