KYeCourts

The Kentucky Court of Justice and the Administrative Office of the Courts provide KYeCourts. The AOC's mission is to ensure fair and equitable access to the court system across the commonwealth. KYeCourts allows easy and expeditious access to criminal and civil cases filed within the Kentucky Court System.

KCOJ's new Case Management System is an extension of this effort. Tyler Technologies, a Texas-based leader in public-sector judicial software, was selected as the vendor for the new CMS. Tyler's Enterprise Justice solution will be deployed as a Software as a Service powered by Amazon Web Services, known as AWS. The software suite will provide online tools for judges, circuit court clerks, attorneys and self-represented litigants, along with an eFiling solution to streamline the court process and offer greater flexibility to the filing community.

The new CMS represents the next phase of Kentucky's electronic filing evolution, which began in December 2013 with a pilot project in Franklin County. Today, electronic filing is mandatory for attorneys and judges in nearly all District, Circuit and Family Court cases. With the adoption of Tyler's eFiling system, Kentucky will be poised to begin its transition to an all-electronic court record.​

Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 1.010, in furtherance of the Kentucky eCourt Program vision and as part of the Kentucky Court of Justice’s transition to an electronic record, the Supreme Court hereby adopts these guiding principles for Kentucky’s new trial case management system.​

  1. Elected officials and KCOJ Personnel will be provided with tools needed to facilitate just, prompt, and safe resolutions of court matters.
  2. The implementation of a new trial court case management system is an opportunity to standardize court processes statewide and create a technological foundation for future growth and effective operations.
  3. Software customization of a new trial court case management system will only occur if required by law. This will ensure process uniformity, reduce overall cost, and promote sustainability.
  4. Organizational change management is critical to the success of the implementation of a new trial case management system and will require an ongoing resource investment.
  5. The trial court case management system subcommittee and implementation project teams must include broad representation of the trial courts.
  6. A substantial commitment of concentrated time from elected officials and KCOJ personnel will be required for project success.
  7. Communication with the vendor will be in a clear, consistent, and uniform approach and only as provided in the new trial case management system contract. Comments, questions, or requests must go through the project manager designated by the Administrative Office of the Courts.

Click on the links below to register for an upcoming File & Serve training or view a recorded session. Note that these are not Kentucky specific and some features and functions may vary. Kentucky specific training opportunities and training materials will be available in the future.​​

After a competitive process, we selected Tyler Technologies as the vendor for our new CMS. The evaluation process included judges, circuit court clerks and experts from the AOC. Tyler is the recognized leader in public-sector judicial software. It has a proven track record, servicing 21 other statewide court systems. In fact, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee all use Tyler software statewide or on a county-by-county basis.​

Tyler also serves North Carolina statewide. North Carolina, like Kentucky, has a unified court system and faces similar challenges in providing court services that effectively meet the needs of both rural and urban communities. Tyler’s experience in addressing these complexities makes it well-equipped to support Kentucky’s courts.

 Read more about Tyler's eFile & Serve solution here.

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​​Existing​KCOJ product

​New Tyler product

​Go-lives

​Timeline

Statewide​

​eFiling (for attorneys)

​eFile & Serve

Jefferson

Fayette

​Fall 2025

​Winter 2025

​Clerk’s eQueue

​Review Queue

​Jefferson

Fayette

​Fall 2025

​Winter 2025

​ACH Debit
A type of payment method where funds are withdrawn directly from the taxpayer's bank account.

Additional Services
Additional services are subcategories within the filing code hierarchy. Examples of additional services are, but not limited to copies, issue summons/citation and sheriff service.

Administrative Email
This is used to specify an email address for the administrative or support personnel associated with the case, law firm or legal entity involved in the filing. This email address typically serves as a secondary point of contact for administrative staff separate from the primary eService contact.

Bookmarks
Bookmarks are used for quick access to file into cases.

Case Management System (CMS)
A case management system, otherwise known as “CMS," is another system separate from any other system that keeps all the information related to a case. The eFile system integrates with CMS to streamline case filing, management and updates.

Client Reference Number
The field is typically used to enter a unique identifier or reference number associated with the client, case or transaction that helps the filer link the filing to a specific individual, entity or event.

Codes
The codes below are general definitions and setups of codes used by filers. The codes are typically set by the individual Courts. Some states like Texas and Illinois have committees that decide what codes are available for use by Courts. Those sets of specific codes available are called “Standards."

Case Category
A case category is the highest group or hierarchy that contains the case type, filing codes and optional services. Examples of a category are Civil, Probate, Family and Criminal.

Case Type
Case types are subs within the category hierarchy. Examples of case types are, but not limited to; Product Liability, Tort, Murder, Foreign Will, etc. Case types will have certain filing codes available within them.

Events
Events are Filing Codes. The term “Event" is used within the Enterprise Justice formerly known as Odyssey case management system instead of filing codes. So, if you hear the term Event used, it is a Filing Code.

Filing Codes
Filings codes are subcategories within the case type hierarchy. Examples of filing codes are, but not limited to, petition, summons, appeal and proposed Order.

Comments to the Court
This field in an eFiling system is where a party filing a document, such as an attorney or self-represented litigant, can include any additional information or clarifications for the Court. This field is typically optional and allows the filer to provide relevant context or explain specific aspects of the filing that may not be fully captured by the document itself.

Convenience Fees
Convenience fees are those costs that Tyler charges the filer for submission of items. These fees typically are a percentage of the total filing fees on an envelope.

Courtesy Copies
The option to provide additional copies of the filed document to certain parties or individuals for informational purposes, even though they may not be legally required to receive them. These copies are not considered official electronic service or submission.

Credit Card Payment
Payment made using a major credit card, often with an additional processing fee.

Docket Date
The specific date when a document or filing is officially recorded in the case management system.

Document Security
This field is used to identify whether the document attached to the filing contains confidential or non-confidential information. The Court will have final authority on determining access restrictions to the document.

eFile
The process of submitting electronic documents to a Court or government entity through the eFile application. It allows legal documents to be filed online, eliminating the need for physical paperwork.

eService
eService is an optional selection in an envelope to have the filing/document served via email through the eFile system upon a specific person in the case. The envelope must have a service contact attached to the envelope to select that service contact for eService of the filing. The eFile system will maintain the simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) log for that envelope as proof of service via email upon that service contact.

Electronic Filing Manager (EFM)
The electronic filing manager is known as the “EFM." The EFM is a system that all eFile items pass through for coordination of codes and application programming interface (API) between the other eFiling systems. The EFM is the central station of the eFiling process.

Envelope
An envelope is the name given to a vehicle in the system that is a group of all the filings that a filer wants submitted together in one case. An envelope is tied to that case and cannot contain filings for multiple cases. It is an electronic submission to a Court that contains one or more filings.

File Stamp
An electronic version of the traditional Court stamp or filing stamp that is placed on paper documents to indicate that they have been officially filed with the Court. In eFiling systems, this stamp serves the same purpose as the physical stamp, but it appears electronically as a part of the document once it has been processed and accepted by the Court.

Filing
A filing is an item in an envelope to which the filer has selected a filing code, with or without optional service(s), and attached a document for the Court's review. There may be multiple filings within an envelope.

Filing Attorney
Refers to the identification of the attorney who is submitting the legal documents on behalf of a party involved in a case. This field is typically used to designate the attorney of record who is filing a document, such as a motion, complaint or brief with the Court.

Filing Description
The input field is where users provide a short description or summary of the document or filing they are submitting electronically. This description helps to categorize, identify and provide context for the filing, making it easier for the reviewing clerk to understand the purpose or nature of the submission.

Filing Drafts
Anytime a user begins a new case filing or files into an existing case, a new Draft is created. This Draft does not become a new filing (also referred to as an "Envelope") until the user clicks the “Submit" button at the bottom of the Summary tab at the end of the draft.

Filing Fees
Filing Fees are costs set by the Court for which they are charging a filer for submitting an item with them. Filing fees could be tied to certain codes. Filing fees as a whole or stated by the Court would include “convenience" or “Tyler fees," but for use by Tyler, Filing Fees are the fees the Court gets paid, not Tyler. See Convenience Fees below for additional information.

Filing History
Displays all filings that the user has submitted.

Firm Management
Allows a firm administrator to manage users' accounts, payment options, firm information and available attorneys.

Integration
The process of multiple applications transferring data between themselves. Having systems, such as eFile and the CMS, integrated allows the applications to automatically update information between them without a person manually updating it.

Lead Document
The lead document is the document/form/filing that is being submitted to the Court. This document is typically the central piece of the filing that represents the action or case you're initiating or responding to.

Location
The Court where the case will be filed at or is currently pending.

Parties Responsible for Fee
This field refers to the identification of the party or parties who is paying the filing fees associated with the submission of legal documents to the Court.

Service Contact
A service contact is someone who has elected to be served via email with documents that have been filed into cases. On the eFiling site each person who wants to receive eService needs to add themselves to the service contact list for each case. This will ensure that email notifications can be sent to them when a filing in a case is eFiled and served.

Submission Agreement
This is used to confirm that the filer agrees to the terms and conditions related to the submission of documents to the Court. This field appears prior to submitting the envelope and serves as a formal acknowledgment that the filer understands and agrees to abide by the rules and procedures for eFiling.

Templates
A case filing template streamlines the process for users to submit their cases or documents. This may include preset fields like:

  • Case type (e.g., civil, criminal, family)
  • Personal information (e.g., names, addresses, contact details)
  • Case description or issue
  • Document upload sections (for Court documents, evidence, etc.).​​