Snohomish County District Court sees closures, cutbacks from tech turnover

Published 1:30 am Thursday, October 22, 2026

EVERETT — Technology turnover is causing closures in Snohomish County District Court.

Last month, the county’s presiding court for misdemeanor charges, small civil claims and traffic infractions debuted a new case management system called Enterprise Justice.

The software is intended to modernize the courts for better service, allowing access to documents, payments and databases online for courts of limited jurisdiction across Washington state.

So far, top judicial officials said the local launch has led to delays for the public and headaches for staff.

“The amount of work involved in this case implementation is a tidal wave on top of the already existing work,” Presiding District Court Judge Beth Fraser said during a budget presentation to the Snohomish County Council on Oct. 7.

Fraser said Snohomish County is the largest county so far to implement the case management system, and it hasn’t been easy.

Since the launch on Sept. 14, court staff have been tasked with learning a new system while also keeping up with a steady flow of filings that never stops.

“We have a 20% increase in filings this year, in addition to the case management system and a staff that is sort of at their wits’ ends right now,” Assistant Presiding Judge Anthony Howard told the county council earlier this month.

Workers are so overwhelmed, Fraser has opted to close the county’s district courts at least three times before the end of the year to give staff time to catch-up. Fraser said she signed an administrative order to shut down the district court’s four locations Friday, as well as Nov. 20 and Dec. 18, and said more closures could be needed.

“This is huge and almost unprecedented,” Fraser told the county council.

She said the district court stayed open during the COVID-19 pandemic but can’t continue to operate at the rate things are going right now.

“Our staff is at a breaking point. They cannot get the work done,” Fraser said.

In an email on Thursday, Howard said time-sensitive work like in-custody matters, protection orders, warrants and criminal and infraction deadlines are all still getting done.

He said the public is waiting longer for civil and administrative matters while a backlog of lower-urgency work grows.

“What takes longer is the processing behind the counter – entering, docketing, routing — and the public sees that as slower turnaround on paperwork and longer waits on the phone,” Howard said.

The district court also cut back on its availability by phone, reducing the hours to 9 a.m. to noon and 1-3 p.m.

“Protected time off the phones is the single most effective thing we could do because every call delays processing that now takes longer than it used to,” Howard said, calling it the hardest decision made during the system transition. “We looked hard for alternatives, and on a staff this lean there were not many. To the public, I will say it plainly — we are sorry for the inconvenience, we know it is a real one, and we will review it at the first of the year.”

Judicial leadership said the new case management system is a necessary change, replacing an outdated software that was tailored to the need of court staff but could no longer be maintained.

“This new system is not as helpful as our old system,” Fraser told county leaders. “It will take years for us to get back to the level of customization that we really need, but it is what needs to be done.”

Snohomish County District Court is following a state-level plan that is rolling out in phases through 2027.

Larger counties like King and Pierce operate their own district court case management systems. Howard said that would be a major expense for Snohomish County to build and sustain.

“We would rather help build a system that works for nearly three hundred courts and probation departments than build one that works only for us,” Howard said.

Multiple requests made by The Daily Herald in August and September to speak with district court officials about the impending system change were declined. At the time, online payments were inaccessible and staff were spending days at a time in off-site training, leading to warnings about longer-than-normal waiting times.

The judges said court clerks trained for close to a year for the transition to the new system, but the learning curve remains sharp, and staff are having to work between both the old and new system while documents are being moved over.

“The old system improved steadily for forty years,” Howard said. “We expect this one to improve faster, and we intend to be part of that.”

Ian Davis-Leonard: 425-339-3097; ian.davis-leonard@heraldnet.com