electronic Filing & Service for Courts

10 Great Tips for Successfully Implementing eFiling: #1

1. DEFINE ELECTRONIC FILING SO EVERYONE IS SPEAKING THE SAME E-FILING LANGUAGE.

You need to define what “electronic filing” means for your court so that everyone has a common baseline of understanding.
Historically the term “electronic filing” or “e-filing” has included fax filing, email, modem-based online services, and more recently CD-ROM transfer. Today, these approaches are considered crude in terms of information management, reliability, and security. A more appropriate description for electronic filing and service, is “the electronic transfer of legal documents to and from court, and between parties using the Internet.”
You should also include a fiscal policy statement regarding electronic filing. For instance, if you choose to partner with a vendor, your policy might state that electronic filing will be implemented with only limited or no public budget impact through a form of public-private partnership. Alternatively, if your court chooses to build your own electronic filing system or purchase an e-filing module from a case management vendor, the fiscal policy should indicate that public funds are needed.

Thanks to: Travis Olson is the national director for LexisNexis® File & Serve Implementation. He has advised courts and attorneys across the country on how to implement e-filing and has successfully implemented projects in several states. Olson is also an attorney.

The Standard for Distributing Electronic Documents

From the Legal Times, April 4, 2005

Because PDF files are required in electronic filings in federal court, they'll be a part of your life for a long time

If you practice law and use a computer, you must know how to create PDF files. Or at least you should know. The format is fast becoming ubiquitous in the legal industry.

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It's an "open file format specification" developed by Adobe Systems Inc. several years ago as a standard for distributing electronic documents.

The format has become popular mainly because of its universality. A PDF file created on a Windows computer looks exactly the same on a Mac. Plus you don't have to worry about what software is installed on the computer systems because anyone can view a PDF courtesy of the free Adobe Reader, which is available for just about every operating system.

In addition, PDF files can be locked down and secured, preventing them from being modified.

For these two reasons, among others, the format has been adopted as the standard for electronic filing in the U.S. federal courts' CM/ECF system (Case Management/Electronic Case Files). And many other government agencies are following the court system's lead and accepting PDF forms and filings.

For folks who are new to the idea of a PDF, or just in need of more information, I would highly recommend "Adobe Acrobat for Lawyers" from "Ernie the Attorney," although it's not completely up-to-date -- http://www.llrx.com/features/adobeforlawyers.htm -- and "Putting PDF and Adobe Acrobat into Your Tech Toolbox," by Dennis Kennedy -- http://www.abanet.org/lpm/lpt/articles/slc05041.html.

The Gradual Digitalization of Our Courtrooms

The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy posted this about efiling in October 2004:

Over the past couple of decades, computer technology has progressed from being the playthings of geeks to the necessities of neophytes. Despite this rapid-fire growth, our judiciary system has remained somewhat sheltered from the effects of the digital age. Courts around the country -- and indeed, around the world -- are slowly incorporating the technology into courtroom proceedings.

Use of the Internet to electronically file motions, pleadings and complaints is lauded for its increase in efficiency, particularly by those who promote the "quest for a paperless court." Federal district and bankruptcy courts are slowly implementing the Case Management/Electronic Case Files system, with the implementation process taking approximately 10 months for each court. In a particularly ambitious move, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California now requires a unique electronic filing process for all complaints and pleadings in securities class actions. Such litigation materials must be filed with the Securities Class Action Clearinghouse , a database created and maintained by Stanford University Law School . The database provides summaries and analyses of securities lawsuits, as well as updates on trends in securites litigation.

Google Results on eFiling in Courts

Here are the results today for a Google search on: electronic filing courts 2005

Results 1 - 10 of about 437,000 for electronic filing courts 2005

Will rerun this search each month to show that the interest is growing (at least as evidenced by a "Google" search)

Future Trends: As boomers retire, courts must adjust

From The National Law Journal, 2/1/2005
Leonard Post

Lawyers Brace for Flood of ElderlyAbout 70 million baby boomers are close to hitting their retirement years, a seismic demographic shift that will dramatically alter the way attorneys and courts do business in the coming decades.

"With increasing age comes dementia, issues of capacity, appointments of guardians -- the courts should expect a significant increase in their caseloads," asserted Sally Hurme, a consumer protection attorney at the Washington headquarters of AARP, the elder advocacy group.

Hurme added that "[e]lder abuse and financial exploitation will appear in increasing numbers on the civil and criminal dockets."

The readiness of courts is "uneven" across the country, she said. Every "court needs to take a close look at their preparedness, because the numbers are coming whether they're prepared or not."

Because people live longer with more disabilities, elder lawyers are already seeing family members fighting over the assets of the living -- as though it were a will contest. These kinds of problems and others will only exacerbate as the clock keeps ticking.

The National Center for State Courts laid out the startling demographic facts in its publication "Future Trends in State Courts-2004."