Leon County's Judicial Website Reopening to New Users 
Florida Supreme Court
The Florida Supreme Court, through AOSC 14-19 and subsequently modified by AOSC 15-18, provided the rules by which Clerks could provide electronic access to court records. We have been working diligently over the past year to ensure that we are in compliance with these administrative orders. Beginning June 17, we began the required 90-day test pilot period and at the completion requested approval to end the pilot period and move to full implementation.
 
The Florida Court Technology Committee met November 19 in Jacksonville to consider our request and the requests of 12 other Clerks also asking to end their pilot periods. The FCTC did not act upon any Clerk requests, but instead decided to initiate audits of each Clerk's electronic access programs.
 
For the past four months while we've been in the pilot period, we have held off adding additional registered users to our Judicial Website. We have continued to accept applications, but have advised applicants that access would be granted in November when we were certified. Given that at this time we cannot predict how long it will take to complete the approval process, we will be reopening the Judicial Website to "new" users, including those that have already applied and anyone that subsequently applies. If you have not yet registered, please go the Judicial Website new user sign-up page (linked here), complete the form online, print it and take it to a notary.  Once notarized you will need to scan it and send it back to us as an email attachment to clerk_judicial@leoncountyfl.gov.

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Many attorneys and other frequent users that were not registered users have requested documents through our "Viewable On Request" (VOR) feature on our public website. The number of requests for public access to court records has grown exponentially over the past four or five months to the point that we are unable to keep up with the requests. Currently, we are nearly two weeks behind in satisfying records requests from the public website.
 
We hope that all attorneys and other business users that need regular access to court records will complete the application form and become registered users. There is no cost, and users will have access to court records as permitted by Florida statutes and court rules. Becoming a registered user will improve your access and reduce the wait for citizens that are infrequent users.
 
Some of the records that are being requested do not exist in electronic form. We have only been receiving electronic records on civil filings since 2011 and on criminal filings since 2013.  As time and resources have permitted, we have back-scanned many open cases and certain closed cases. If you request documents that do not exist electronically, there will be the usual statutory charge of $1 per page. While the Judicial Website already clearly indicates when there is an image, we will be modifying our public website in the same manner so that users may determine whether a charge will be assessed. We will be contacting requesters of paper documents to advise them of the costs; then we will process credit card payments by phone prior to providing the documents. Requesters of paper documents may still view these at no cost in our Help Center on the first floor of the Leon County Courthouse.

We ask for your patience and appreciate your help as we continue our implementation process of the two administrative orders.
Our Office Gratuity Policy and Why We Have It

It is almost the holiday season again. As we enter this time of thanks and celebration, our customers often like to show their appreciation for the excellent job that we have done for them by giving presents. While we appreciate that and it is an awesome concept, there are laws regulating the acceptance of gratuities by public servants, and we have a policy here in the Clerk's office as well to refuse gifts or gratuities.

Why do we refuse gratuities? It has to do with several things: state law, the potential for abuse, ensuring the public understands that we assist everyone equally without any favoritism, avoiding the appearance of impropriety, etc. The bottom line is that we are paid for what we do, excellent and equal access to our services is our hallmark, and accepting gratuities is just not a good practice in the public sector.

It is our policy to refuse gratuities if possible.  Please help us with this by not providing gratuities and accepting our refusal of them.  When it is not possible to refuse or return a gratuity, we have specific rules for how we go about accepting, acknowledging, and distributing gratuities.

Here are some examples:
  • Monetary gratuities will be turned in to Administration for donation to local charities, in the name of the donor whenever possible;
  • Food is shared with all employees; and
  • Goods or services, including gift cards, will either be donated to charity or used as prizes at office-wide events as determined by Clerk Administration.
There are some exceptions that allow individual employees to keep gratuities, but as a general rule, we must refuse gifts. We appreciate our customers and love that you wish to recognize us when we do a good job. But we also appreciate your understanding if we have to return a gratuity.
We are Closing our Post Office Boxes

We reported to you in our November 2014 newsletter that we were closing our post office boxes as a cost cutting and efficiency measure.  Between then and now we've been removing all references to post office boxes and using up any pre-printed materials that show these post office boxes. We've also updated our forms and other public items.

Listed below is the schedule for post office box closings. For six months after this, the USPS will forward mail addressed to these boxes to 301 S. Monroe, #100, Tallahassee, FL 32301. After six months, any mail addressed to the boxes will be returned to the sender as undeliverable. Please make note of the following schedule:

* October 31, 2015: PO Box 11336
* November 30, 2015: PO Box 1529
* Dec 31, 2015: PO Box 105, 1024, 267, and 726

Please also refer to our website for the listing of physical mailing addresses for all divisions in the Leon County Clerk & Comptroller's Office. Click on the "Contact Us" button at the top right-hand corner of the main page, and then select the mailbox icon for "Mail."
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