30 June 2014

Too Secret By Far

Colorado's state courts use an electronic filing system called ICCES. This is great for some purposes. But, its effort to preserve privacy in probate cases has gone overboard.

The system will not admit or deny that a probate case exists until your attorney enters an appearance in the case.

Admittedly, private financial information in probate filings should be protected from uninterested parties (Colorado law does not even require that such filings be made a matter of public record - they may simply be distributed to interested parties upon request). But, the notion that a process that is designed to provide a forum for third party creditors who are outsiders to lodge their claims operates in secrecy otherwise reserved only for terrorism cases is absurd.

No comments: