Case Initiation Elements

I attach a Word table setting forth the case initiation data elements that I have discovered to date. They include input from the Administrative Office of US Courts, Orange County, FLA, Minneapolis, Missouri, Utah, and King County, WA. The list includes case initiation data for criminal, civil, bankruptcy, family, juvenile delinquency, juvenile dependency, mental health, traffic and probate cases.

I am indebted to all who sent data elements to me.

The exercise of putting this together convinces me that we need to include some mechanism for easily extending our schema(s) to allow for the exchange of additional data elements. After I had incorporated several criminal data element sets, I assumed that I had the matrix well populated. However, I found that each additional set of elements from a new jurisdiction contributed several new elements not used in the multiple element sets that I had already incorporated.

In short, I consider this a very substantial list of case initiation elements that will impress our stakeholders of the breadth of our inquiry. But I know it is not exhaustive, and, as Dallas Powell continually points out, it cannot be made exhaustive no matter how much work we commit to the task because of the unique data elements used and therefore required in different states and different courts within some states.

I hope this is helpful to the reference document effort at the end of this week. I leave it to Scott Came to determine if and how it can be used in that exercise.

John M. Greacen

Greacen Associates, LLC

HCR 78 Box 23

Regina, New Mexico 87046

505-289-2164

505-289-2163 (fax)

505-780-1450 (cell)

john@greacen.net

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