How to prepare for CourtSA in the Criminal, Special and Care and Protection jurisdictions
CourtSA is an online portal which allows solicitors to view their client’s case, including the charges for any defendant you represent, the solicitor for the prosecution or other defendants, filed documents on the case as well as past and future hearings.
CourtSA will launch in the Criminal, Special and Care and Protection jurisdictions on a date to be announced within a three week go live window from 22 August to 5 September 2022.
CourtSA Account Setup
To use CourtSA you will need to register an account. If you already have a CourtSA account, you don’t need a new one for the launch of CourtSA in the Criminal, Special and Care and Protection jurisdictions. You can use your existing account to login.
- Firms or Organisations
If you work for a firm or organisation, you don’t need to create your own individual account. Your law firm or organisation administrator will need to make an account for your firm and invite you to join their law firm/ organisation. If you are unsure if your firm or organisation has an existing account or who your law firm administrator is, we suggest raising it at a staff meeting or circulating an email to everyone in your firm.
- Agencies and Organisations
Agencies and organisations such as the South Australian Police, the Crown Solicitor’s Office, the Legal Services Commission and the Department for Child Protection have accounts that have already been created and will send invites to their users.
- Sole Practitioners
If you are a sole practitioner who does not already have a CourtSA account, and you practice in the criminal jurisdiction, then you will need to contact the Law Society of South Australia to check your P Code details and update them if needed.
To register for a CourtSA account as a sole practitioner, it is suggested you use your P Code email address to register the account.
For more information about getting set up and your account visit the CourtSA Help Centre.
If you need to make an enquiry regarding an existing account or need assistance registering an account, please contact the CourtSA Registry Services Team at enquiry@courts.sa.gov.au
Consider what cases you will need to request access to
When CourtSA goes live in the Criminal, Special and Care and Protection jurisdictions you will be able to request case access to any cases you are a legal practitioner representing a party on.
You will need case access if you are defending a case. Make a list of the cases that you are representing a party on so that you can request case access to those cases when CourtSA goes live in the Criminal, Care and Protection and Special Jurisdictions.
To request access to your case please follow these simple steps:
- Login to CourtSA
- Select ‘Access a Case’ from the drop-down menu
- Read the instructions and click ‘Request Access to a Case’
- Complete the form and click ‘Proceed’
You will need the following details:
- Type of case (Civil, Criminal, Environment, Resources & Development, Probate, Youth Court)
- Court Jurisdiction (Magistrates, District or Supreme)
- Case number (as it appears on Court documents)
- Case name (as it appears on Court documents)
- P Code
- L Code
- Role of a party on the case you are representing (Defendant, Applicant, Respondent, Informant)
- Party type (Individual, Organisation, Regular Party)
- First and last name of party you are representing
Once case access is granted, a Notice of Acting will also be generated for you and any case that you have access to will also be available to anyone who is invited to your firm or organisation. There is no need for multiple people within the same firm to request case access to the same case.
If you would like to change the responsible solicitor on file you will need to the ‘Access a case’ form in CourtSA.
Please note that when CourtSA goes live in the Criminal, Special and Care and Protection Jurisdictions there will be a large volume of case access requests being made by practitioners and organisations. Case access requests generally take within 24-48 hours to process but during this time processing of requests may take longer. We appreciate your patience during this time.
Any criminal cases that you request access to that were not initiated in CourtSA (ie cases created prior to August/September 2022) will not have any PDF or word documents on them as the Court registries are not scanning documents from paper files into ECMS. Even where a document is not digitised and viewable it will still be listed in CourtSA to show it exists in hard copy. Any new cases initiated in CourtSA will have electronic documents available to view. If you do require any hardcopy documents, you will need to make a request in writing to enquiry@courts.sa.gov.au and your request will be forwarded to the relevant Registry to action.
If you would like to find out more about CourtSA contact the Law Society of South Australia to register for an Information Session.