Lawrence K. Marks.

The state's Unified Court System has announced the purchase of a $4.5 million software system that will bring savings to town and village courts, Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks said.

The acquisition of the automated case management system developed by Service Education Inc. will save $1.5 million annually in licensing fees, the court system said in a press release on Tuesday. Outside of New York City, there are 1,300 justice courts that hear roughly 2 million cases each year and collect about $250 million in fees, fines and surcharges. Prior to the court system's purchase of the software system, each municipality was responsible for payment of any licensing fees and other costs, which ranged between $1,300 and $4,500 a year per court.

“This transaction will save New York's municipalities millions of dollars going forward. The acquisition of the SEi case management system is the latest step in a series of measures taken by the New York state court system to assist the state's town and village justice courts in their operation and enhance the quality of justice administered by these locally funded tribunals, which form a critical part of New York's justice system,” Marks said in a statement.

While justice courts have used the SEi case management system previously, there were “inherent risks in relying exclusively on a proprietary product owned by a small, private company,” the state's court system said. By purchasing the software, sensitive case material is more secure and the data transferred from SEi's private servers will now be housed in state-owned and managed servers.

David S. Gideon, a Town of DeWitt justice and president of the New York State Magistrates Association said the purchase of the software system will save town and villages funds previously used for licensing and maintenance fees. The funds that were previously used will “now be available for other needed justice court expenditures,” Gideon said in a statement.