Those at the Albany County District Attorney's Office are watching the clock, but they aren't necessarily counting down to the start of a new decade.

A number of criminal justice reforms take effect statewide on January 1 and departments have spent the past six months preparing.

That includes scanning thousands of documents in an effort to digitize. The county plans to use an already existing fiber network that links the district attorney to local police departments.

"I would probably be more nervous if we did not have that," says Albany County District Attorney David Soares.

The fiber line was once used for 911 call information. Now repurposed, it will allow discovery information to be quickly shared.

"We cannot tie up prosecutors and support staff with three hours of downloading information from a cloud based system, that’s just not efficient. This is the most efficient way to achieve those goals," Soares said. 

Under new discovery reforms, all information needs to be turned over to a defendant within 15 days. That’s not just documents. It includes footage from body cameras and police vehicles and information from witnesses and interviews.

Because of this, the Albany County Sheriff's Office has also been reallocating resources, moving around existing employees to help come in complience.

"We’re clearing out an office and creating a new records unit, expanded, moving some in house folks around," says Sheriff Craig Apple.

Those in Albany County say the fiber line is key, and they consider themselves lucky for having it. The hope is law enforcement will spend 7 days reviewing and uploading information. Then the district attorney’s office will use the remaining time to start building a case.