Introduction
Every court should have a program for managing the creation, maintenance,
and disposition of all court records. Any records management program
instituted should consider the handling of a file from case initiation
to destruction as well as the handling of other court records not necessarily
associated with a specific case file. Standards for managing trial court
case files, which represent the majority of a court's records management
needs, have been established through Michigan Supreme Court Administrative
Order 1999-4 and the Michigan Trial Court Case File Management Standards.
For details see Michigan
Trial Court Case File Management Standards.
Education and training in the area of records management is available
through the Institute for Court Management. In addition, the National
Center for State Courts has published A Guide to Court Records Management.
For more information on this publication and other resources, see the National Center
for State Courts website at http://www.ncsconline.org/wc/CourTopics/ResourceGuide.asp?topic=DocMan#210
Any records management program should be considered in light of caseflow
management practices as well. See Caseflow
Management: A Practitioner's Guide for a better understanding
of this relationship.
Records Management Guidelines, Standards, and Resources
Technical Standards for Microfilming and Imaging
Public Access to Court Case Records
Retention and Destruction of Records
State
Archives
Storage of Records
