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Rant about court rules
The US District Court here has gone over to electronic filing. One side-effect is that a lot of the older attorneys, who haven't become computer nerds (and, more importantly, whose secretaries haven't become computer nerds) no longer take cases there.
Cripes. The problem is that the court's system was not quite ready for prime time. You start by converting a document into .pdf. Often, you have to insert scanned-in documents. If the total is over a certain size, it must be broken into chunks.
THEN you sign into a webpage. There are two webpages, incidentally. You can upload on one, but have to view documents on a different site. Each has a different username and password. The passwords are of the "12XZ0045G" variety, to ensure security online while making sure you have to write them down and make it totally insecure in your office. Nevermind that a hacker probably has more profitable things to do than invent court pleadings in your name.
After logging in, go to the case where you want to upload. This takes a time, since the format for the cases is not one ever used here (i.e., it's a different sequence of year-civil or criminal-number). You then go thru about 6-7 screens and finally get to upload.
Okay, at least you would have saved the time of going to the court (half an hour's drive from me) or mailing a copy. No... you're not finished!
The judges apparently like hard copy. So you must print out a copy, attach the email back from the court computer showing that it was sent to the other attorney, and deliver or mail both to the clerk's office.
Oh, and if your motion asks for an order, as they usually do, then you must send the court, by email directly to the judge, a draft order. The draft order must be in WordPerfect format, since the district court is one of the few offices I've encountered that doesn't use Word. (This part is not very easy on me, since I run a Mac, WordPerfect stopped supporting Macs years ago, and a Windows WP file is not compatible with a Mac WP file).
Comments
Aren't there ex parte communication issues with this system? I mean, assuming that any email you send the judge is also copied to opposing counsel its not so bad but it certainly allows for a convenient excuse should a "mistake" occur and be subsequently discovered.
Also, where can you even buy word perfect these days, let alone a mac version. Seems to me that the court is seriously denying access to justice. As for your immediate Mac problems, you can get a aple scipt converter but my solution is going to be the purchase of one of these new power macs (not that I care about WP - just that I have some old pleadings I'd like to get access to one of these days).
Posted by: countertop at June 29, 2006 04:11 PM
Same thing here in the Northern district in Mi.
Electronic filing is required.Came into effect while I had a case in process. It is an absolute pain in the a--. I will not take another case in the district as a result of this non sense.
Posted by: David McCleary at June 30, 2006 01:36 AM
Well then SEND ME YOUR WORK! I ***LOVE*** electronic filing. I wish every court I appear in had it.
It is easy as pie to make Adobe PDF documents. Click, click, and there's the document. From WordPerfect, hit "publish-->PDF" and I believe Word has a similar feature. If you get Adobe, it installs as a printer driver, so ANYTHING that you can print on hard copy, you can just select Adobe as your printer and make the PDF that way.
[WordPerfect is so vastly superior to Word, has so much more functionality, let's not even go there. As usual the Microsoft product is better-marketed but much less useful. Still, you can make PDFs of anything. Even Word documents.]
If your scanned-in documents are too large, you are probably scanning them at too high a resolution. It ain't the Zapruder film.
Draft orders and the like in DC must be in PDF, like everything else. There is usually no need for a chambers copy. Yes, it is bizarre for courts to ask for a hard copy of an electronic filing. It defeats the purpose. They should try not to do that.
There is no need to waste time going to court to file every little thing, or send someone to waste time going to court to file every little thing.
And my absolute favorite feature -- INSTANT SERVICE. No need to crank out and mail physical copies of everything. You upload it to the Court, and opposing counsel gets an email that the document is in and they have to go get it. Works in reverse, too. I don't have to be tied down to the office, because if opposing counsel files something in my absence, I can just check email and see what's going on.
A while ago, a judge gave me an extra homework assignment. I could have told him, in front of sleazy opposing counsel, that the proposed date for my filing being due conflicted with vacation plans and could I have more time. I'm sure I would have gotten the extra time, but that just wasn't the sort of information I felt like sharing with opposing counsel. So I said, "sure, your honor, I can do that." And on the appointed day, I popped into an internet cafe overseas, plugged in my laptop, and everything was FILED and SERVED in about two seconds and nobody knew any different.
God bless the internet. God bless electronic filing.
Posted by: Alan Gura at June 30, 2006 08:20 AM