Court Reduces Citation Process from 3 Days to 9 Hours
December 11, 2025 by Dana Rasmussen
In a high traffic municipal court, extra time means better resource utilization, improved processes, and enhanced services for the public.
Hobbs Municipal Court in New Mexico knew innovation could help the court achieve its efficiency goals, especially surrounding citation processes.
In Hobbs, NM court clerks could process up to 180 citations per day. This process took clerks three days working nine hours each day to print, enter, and scan all citations.. Director of the Municipal Court Shannon Arguello wanted to improve the citation process and looked at the court’s Municipal Justice solution from Tyler Technologies for options.
“We’ve always been overly impressed with Tyler’s products for municipal courts,” Arguello said. “We wanted to make a difference in the community that we serve by opting into new innovations to benefit our court and community. Tyler empowered us to continue doing our jobs timely while utilizing our resources better. We appreciate that Tyler is constantly looking to improve processes and we will be forever grateful.”
Faster Processing Times and Increased Productivity in the Cloud
The court’s desire to innovate with Tyler allowed the change Arguello longed for to come to fruition. Now, Hobbs Municipal Court processes citations in just one day and only one clerk is required to do the work, allowing other court staff to tend to sensitive matters and increase productivity.
In addition, their cloud-hosted municipal court solution works faster than the former on-premise solution by reducing the instability of servers, decreasing the time to process cases, and streamlining queues more efficiently.
“Going to the cloud allows municipal prosecutors to manage cases and track documents and data,” Arguello said. “The cloud lets us streamline processes and become more automated. Attorneys and the public can also access information easily, which reduces the time clerks spend on phones.”
According to Arguello, the benefits of this cloud-hosted municipal court system include:
- Increased productivity with attorneys who e-file, allowing them to file documents, review documents, and obtain copies easily and in real time
- Eliminating the time spent obtaining and processing requests in person by offering digital options
- Providing the public with better services and enhanced efficiency
Sharing Success With Neighboring Courts
“When I approached our judge, IT director, and city manager about what we could do with this new process with Tyler, they bought in immediately,” Arguello said. “It eliminated double work.”
In fact, the success the City of Hobbs experienced inspired neighboring courts in Carlsbad and Lovington to visit the court and think about Hobb’s innovation with Tyler to improve processes within their county courts.
“With the calendar, dockets, case management, and mass processing capabilities, we are all excited with what we can do with this innovative court system,” Arguello said. “the first court in New Mexico to add and utilize this product, we couldn’t be happier with the service it brings to the courts and our community.”