New Portal at D.C. Office of Administrative Hearings Offers Opinions Online, But Search Is Limited

Opinions by the 36 judges who hear thousands of complaints yearly about government agency errors are now accessible on a public online portal, a result of years of Coalition and community advocacy to end Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) longstanding practice of secret law, where most “final orders” have been accessible to parties only.

The issues in OAH cases are crucial to public confidence in fair government, such as Medicaid and Food Stamps benefit mistakes, a teen’s unfounded school suspension, or a trash ticket issued to the wrong address.  

Publishing opinions online is one of many challenges all courts are facing, to adapt traditional practices to the digital age. Another at the OAH was switching to remote hearings, which are far more convenient for most people and continue as standard after adoption by necessity during COVID.

Skyrocketing OAH case volumes (over 20,000 filings per year) now outpace the entire civil division of the Superior Court. The crushing workload (met with a proposed budget cut in the mayor’s initial FY25 budget) requires added staff and greater efficiency through next-generation technology, according to two outside reviews shared in Coalition testimony to the D.C. Council earlier this year.   

Few of the tens of thousands seeking hearings have lawyers. Many can benefit from opinions in cases like their own, seeing how a judge explained the law and applied it to others’ facts.

But even in the new access portal, similar cases are just about impossible to find.  

Users will find a search box for “case type,” but that’s misleading. That drop-down menu lists only D.C. agencies, not human problems. For example, the D.C. Department of Human Services determines eligibility for SNAP (food stamps), TANF (welfare), Medicaid, rental assistance, housing for people experiencing homelessness, childcare help, and more. Searching cases naming that agency will presumably turn up dozens irrelevant to any particular user.

Text search is the modern solution, yet OAH officials can’t say when that might be available.

Basic publication is still welcome, as it has been a long-standing issue. The D.C. Auditor in 2016 and the Office of Open Government in 2020 recommended the OAH complete plans to upgrade online technology by adding a searchable database of opinions since D.C. law requires it. The portal is an innovation born under the leadership of Chief Judge M. Colleen Currie, confirmed in the position in 2021.

Further projects in a new user-friendly spirit, perhaps inaugurated with the new opinion portal, could include:

• A public docket (an online display of events and filings in each case) that would immediately help reduce the flood of phone calls to the clerk of court to learn a hearing date or other case details (“Did you get what I sent in?”) and
• More accessible help with procedures, such as videos on how to file or how the Office hearings work in the virtual age (the current text describing how to use the portal to file a case is written at a college-graduate reading level).

The D.C. Open Government Coalition has repeatedly urged the OAH to develop public-facing features after consulting with those who will use them (and the Council, in an FY23 budget report, directed the OAH to engage with the Coalition on technology plans—which has not yet happened).

The Coalition renews its longstanding offer to assist in assembling an advisory panel of users, which many courts report to be invaluable as they plan access innovations. Such consultation is a best practice in developing all types of government software and web interfaces for the general public, and it is now even mandatory in federal agencies, as the White House announced in a 2021 executive order.

Management of [the government’s] customer experience and service delivery should be driven fundamentally by the voice of the customer through human-centered design methodologies; empirical customer research; an understanding of behavioral science and user testing, especially for digital services; and other mechanisms of engagement.

Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government (E.O. 14058, 12/16/21)