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High-Tech Depositions and Electronic Trial

1. CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 22 Missouri Western District Court Related Documents If your document refers to an existing document in the case click on the box to the left of Please check this box if you wish to relate your filing to a document other than a complaint or motion previously filed in this case Western District of Missouri System Netscape Query Reports utilities Logout 6 01 03004 FJG Julian v Burnett m Please check this box if you wish to relate your filing to a document other than a complaint or motion previously filed in this Case NOTE If the event you are docketing is an answer response you will be prompted on a subsequent screen for its related motion Therefore do not click on this box to establish a relationship to the motion you are answering CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 23 Missouri Western District Court If the document being filed refers to an existing document in the case two additional screens are displayed o On the next screen select the type s of existing document s to which the one currently being filed relates Western District of Missouri System Netscape Utilities Logout o Scroll through the list of document types and click on the one that applies To specify more than one existing document type press and hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard as you click on the additional ones o Scroll down and click on 544 o On the next screen se
2. Files of type Select the file to be uploaded Note To verify that the document being filed is the correct document after the file 1s selected right click on the file name to bring up a quick menu and left click on open The pdf document will open and can be viewed to verify that it is the correct document If there are no attachments to the motion click on Nex Attachments to Documents Select the pdf document for example amp CX199cv501 21 pdt Filename Jc s PDF Files Terrym pdf Attachments to Document Ho Yes If there 1s an attachment to the motion e g an exhibit appendix etc Click Yes Click Nea An additional screen is displayed all exhibits must be attached to the motion application or document being filed which allows you to attach one or more documents CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 19 Missouri Western District Court Western District of Missouri System Netscape Query Reports Utilities Logout Select one or more attachments 1 Enter the pdf document that contains attachment for example Clappendix pdf Filename Po Browse 2 t your option select a document type and or enter a description Description CT 3 Add the filename to the list box below If you have more attachments go back to Step 1 When the list of filenames is complete click on the Next button Under Type of Attachment click on the arrow and click on the t
3. tags by which they are to be identified XML serves as a common language by which data can be transmitted The sending computer application translates the data to be sent from its unique structure into the XML structure for transmission The receiving computer accepts the data in the XML structure and translates it from that structure into what ever form its software uses For example the XML tag for last name would be lt LastName gt An application using XML would send the following information lt LastName gt Smith lt LastName gt The receiving computer would know that the data Smith falling between the beginning and ending tags lt LastName gt should be placed into the receiving system s data field for last name In short XML provides a common means for communicating information among incompatible automated systems In the above example any computer system with an XML interface can create the XML file placing Smith between the two lt LastName gt tags And any other computer with an XML interface can read the XML file XML has been and continues to be developed cooperatively by the computer and communications industries in association with the World Wide Web Consortium W3C The World Wide Web Consortium has developed a family of standards protocols and conventions for the use of XML XML is currently being implemented by the creation of a document type definition DTD which defines the data elements to be tra
4. part of the Features section at the Law Library Resource Exchange site October 1997 Guidelines for the filing of CD ROM briefs were issued by the U S Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the 1997 case of Yukiyo v Watanabe 111 F3d 883 Fed Cir 1997 In March 1997 the AOUSC published its Electronic Case Files in the Federal Courts A Preliminary Examination of Goals Issues and the Road Ahead We provide here a copy of the memorandum accompanying the report and links to e the report in HTML format e the report in PDF format Judge Monty Anhalt now retired has posted a number of monthly articles at his court s site under the banner of the Virtual Courthouse West Group and SCT Government Systems have announced their WestFile service to provide access to court files including a service which notifies attorneys of new filings in selected cases Electronic Filing Virtual Courthouse or Virtual Courier 1s an archive posted by TexLaw archiving a discussion on electronic filing issues which took place on Counsel Connect in February and March 1998 We have posted an article at this site discussing Document imaging as an adjunct to electronic court filing In December 1999 the AOUSC posted a discussion of Privacy and access to electronic case files in the Federal Courts addressing the need to balance the privacy rights of litigants with the public s interest in open disclosure of the workings of the courts Finding the
5. Court may refuse to accept filing if marked rue number 2 3 CaseTitle T Case title 23 CaseCategory____ T asecategory____ ____ ______ 23 CaseYear____ T aseyear 23 lineageCaseNumber_________ T Previous case number hD T Maybereferredto Appendix B o a ReterenceCase TL T Gaselnformation 10 BH ees axe eu specified case ae T Caselnformation ID o o So oe E 5 0 jum O o O a Required Court Defined Empty Required Court Defined DTD Defined 23 CauseOfAction__________ T Placeholder pT Mere erento 3 Eourtinformation r T Bett expianatoy EA OO ponto E E 23 CourtName T Senderdefined i O o ee O a ep o eer by application 5mm TD E by court may define Pree active etc Court may o StatusDate T T Date of status ISO 8601 24 JadgressLime r T booressines o T 24 jwdesciy T T Cityorpostofice e fatressCounty tomy 24 AddressState T T Stateorprovince 0 CT 5 24 AddressPostalCode T T kiPorpostalcode o o o 24 esco AddressCountry T so3166 A3 requireda e pem 1 ee T information pe o dHldiHd authority Appendix B o Document Reference Required Court Defined Required Court Defined DTD Defined a 24
6. attachment dem o D IE 2 2 2 ConfirmationInformation T T Confirmation RefersTo i T Same as FilingInformation pee D DL ps e ilingDispositi T Transmission success T 2 2 2 LeadDocumentDispostion T T T Lead document T confirmation ID attribute T Transmission success information FilingDisposition T Document Reference Required ourt Defined Empty Required ourt Defined TD Defined CourtReference Document reference information in receiving court AttachmentDispostion Lead document n Same as Attachment ID confirmation attribute Hyperlink to electronic document in receiving information Transmission success o PEE ee Refer to actor defined Refer to actor defined outside of document Appendix B O T Wctorstile 0 0 0 0 0 P l 5 5 o Q Co o c E 5 0 jum O o O a ourt Defined Empty Required Court Defined TD Defined a a T Request to court or court assigned Court may 4 aH f Required 2 3 itle a 23 Roe Z Tjactorrde lll may define it Refer to matter in document er PMH not defined elsewhere T TSefexpanatonry 1 T T Selfexplanatory 2 3 Authentication T Place holder 23 Userldentification T T UserlogonorotherID 23 Password A ae O 23 Caselnformation T T Identify case T NewCase qm Default to talse
7. 4 76 Higher versions of Netscape do not work at this time Adobe Acrobat software to convert documents from a word processor format to portable document format PDF A scanner to transmit documents that are not in your word processing system Note This would only be used for documents that cannot be produced electronically Scanned documents lessen the level of service we provide by slowing down the entire system We are moving away from the utilization of scanned documents inside the Court and are asking you to do the same when possible For additional information and known problems refer to Technical Notes Appendix I Due to security a session can only be established using Netscape Navigator 4 5 4 7 or 4 76 DO NOT USE America On Line s version of Netscape Navigator or a version of Netscape Navigator lower than 4 5 As of this date no version of Internet Explorer is certified as compatible with CM ECF system Use IE at your own risk CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 2 Missouri Western District Court How to Register for Access Participants who have never used the system must telephone the Court to obtain a registration form if the participant has not already obtained one and to discuss the system requirements and the court s training assistance Toll Free Help Desk 1 800 466 9302 or Kansas City Bill Terry 816 512 5055 Jefferson City Glenda Curl 573 636 6124 Springfield Jane Kollmeyer 417 865 3869 The completed regis
8. Hom amp Instant Message UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OFMISSOURI 3 Case Management WIA CM ECF gt Welcome to the U S District Court for the Western District of Missouri Western District of Missouri Document Filing System Civil Cases Only Western District of Missouri s Web Site User Manual PDF Last Updated May 2001 3 3MB File Procedures Manual PDF Last Updated May 2001 1MB File y BHE Document Done S T EE xe Or you may go to the Western District of Missouri s Web site at www mow uscourts gov and click on the CM ECF link then click on the Link to Electronic Case Files under the District Court heading A login and password 1s required to file a document or train to file a document Select the Document Filing System Note This information is current and is available for viewing immediately after the transaction 1s completed CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 8 Missouri Western District Court Logging In The next screen is the login screen File Edit View Go Communicator Help w 2 2 A 2w d g E Back Fonwaerd Reload Home Search Netscape Print Security Shop Stop z uf Bookmarks E Location E ecf mowd uscourts gov cgk bin lagin pl Gal What s Related C Web Goodies i List Archives h ECF PACER T hy El Archives of JUD EJ Directory of E E E 40 01T SDSD Hom amp Instant Message Notice This is a Restricted Web Sit
9. National Center Mr Peters was Director of Business Information Systems and former faculty for the Educational Technology Department at Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga TN From 1988 to1996 Mr Peters worked as the Information Systems Director in Walton County Florida where he designed and implemented systems in image processing public access Voice Response Unit records management and mapping Mr Peters graduated from MacArthur State in Opp Alabama He continued his education in business law at Troy State University and pursued business management at Temple University He has programmed in COBOL RPG Basic Visual Basic C CL HTML Java JavaScript Perl and CGI and has worked with operating systems and networks from Novell Windows Unix Sun to IBM Ed Papps Senior court technology associate for the National Center for State Courts Ed has developed a technology program that addresses where technology is http www ncsc dni us ICM calendar electronic_filing 0104 html Page 2 of 3 Electronic Filing Document Imaging 7 29 01 10 32 PM headed in these rapidly changing times Prior to joining the National Center Ed worked for the 16th Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri on a project to move all computer applications to a new client server based system Ed s experience in this area of technology spans over 25 years Ed was also instrumental in implementing one of the first full function electronic courtrooms in the natio
10. Pp Pp Pp Pp Pp F Pp B Bn FF gt RB pp Are you sick and tired of the hassles the expense and the delays involved in retrieving copies from US district and bankruptcy courts Has searching PACER got you down Then take a look at the Arizona Bankruptcy Court s Web site at http ecf azb uscourts gov At this site you can view not only docket sheets but the documents themselves in PDF format are just a mouse click away Currently there are only three cases available at the site Nationsway Transport Boston Chicken and McCulloch Corp These cases were selected as they are all extremely high profile Access 1s free and no password is required If you have a PACER password you can go to the Arizona Bankruptcy Court s home page at www azb uscourts gov to obtain a read only password that will enable you to view hundreds of cases that have been made available on the Internet since October 1997 The Arizona Bankruptcy Court s web site 1s part of a larger pilot project by the Administrative Office of the U S Courts called ECF Electronic Case Files Service Internet access to case records is currently available in nine federal courts The project began in 1996 and enables participating attorneys to submit pleadings and docket entries in PDF format directly to the court Instant read only access to the docket and all corresponding documents 1s available to those with PACER accounts Links to the courts that are currently participating in
11. Suggestions in Opposition due 04 30 2001 CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 25 Missouri Western District Court Refining the description of the document node Fide Test Western District of Missouri Netscape At My Query Reports utilities Logout 6 01 03004 FJG Julian v Burnett Docket Text Modify as Appropriate MOTION to dismiss case filed by Ima guestATY on behalf of Karen Burnett suggestions in opposition due by 5 14 2001 Kollmeyer Jane Click on the drop down list and select the correct modifier if necessary Alias Amendad Consent Counter Cross Emergency Ex Parte inienrn Joint Proposed Quarterly Reply Supplamenial Third Party CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 26 Missouri Western District Court Click on the white box to the right of the description of the document you are filing and type in any additional description if appropriate Western District of Missouri System Netscape Query Utilities Logout 6 01 03004 FIG Julian v Burnett Docket Text Modify as Appropriate INNEN MIOTION to dismiss case fea by ima guestATY on behalf of Karen Burnett suggestions in opposition due by 4 30 2001 guestATY Ima CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 27 Missouri Western District Court Give final approval and file the document by following instructions on the following screen Western District of Missouri System Netscape Query Reports Utilities L
12. The ability to e mail transcripts is presently in use by a number of court reporting firms See e g http www reallegal com The e transcript is a very useful way for attorneys and courts to receive a transcript electronically because the software is embedded in the file and thus the recipient can use the file without downloading software Mac users can download a separate reader http www reallegal com Perhaps the most user friendly format is Adobe s Acrobat Reader Current version is 5 0 See http www adobe com products main html Adobe Systems Incorporated uses the PDF portable data file format PDF exactly preserves the printed format PDF viewers for most computer platforms are available for free from the Adobe Systems Incorporated Web server http www adobe com PDF files preserve complex page formatting and layout typography and graphics The document viewed is identical in format regardless of the platform that created the PDF document or on which the PDF document is viewed PDF viewers also allow searching and printing of the document and copying portions of the text from the PDF document into the paste buffer The Western District of Missouri federal court for example has recently issued a User manual on how to file electronically in pdf http ecf mowd uscourts gov I believe that pdf files will become the standard for lawyers to use in filing court documents and therefore court reporters should incor
13. analysis Attendees will be able to Identify electronic filing components Explore Internet connectivity for electronic filing Consider Electronic Data Interchange EDI for courts Articulate document security issues Examine security issues Compare state by state statutes and rules http www ncsc dni us ICM calendar electronic filing 0104 html Page 1 of 3 Electronic Filing Document Imaging 7 29 01 10 32 PM e Compile a software hardware development cost analysis Who Should Attend Judges court administrators information technology directors court personnel and others non technical and technical interested in electronic filing with courts From the court with no areas of electronic filing to the completely developed electronic filing courts this course will offer building blocks to promote informed technology change Courts are encouraged to send teams of individuals charged with managing court technology CEDP This course satisfies the Technology Management requirement for Phase of the Court Executive Development Program Fee 650 Schedule Registration 8 00 a m Wednesday April 18 Opening Session 8 30 a m Daily Class Sessions 8 30 a m 4 30 p m Concludes 4 30 p m Friday April 20 Certificates will be awarded only to those who attend every session Faculty Robert Newton Peters Technology Specialist for the Institute for Court Management and a court technology specialist for the
14. be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement officials Welcome to the U S District Court for the Western District of Missouri Electronic Document Filing System This page is for the use by attorneys and firms participating in the electronic filing system The most recent version of the Netscape browser and the Adobe PDF reader can be obtained by selecting the Netscape PDF Settings option listed below You should become familiar with the navigational capabilities of your Netscape browser Most screen displays in this system are split to provide a small top frame for Netscape Review Netscape s frame capability for new navigation tips Netscape PDF Settings is Last login 04 13 2001 09 38 9January2001 CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 10 Missouri Western District Court Civil Events Feature ZEC F Civil Query Reports Utilities Logout This Civil option permits the filing of documents in a case There are four basic steps involved in filing a document 1 Selecting a document type see list on pages 40 41 2 Entering the case numbers for which the document 1s to be filed 3 Designating the parties filing the document and 4 Specifying the PDF file name for the document to be filed Note Pursuant to COURT EN BANC ORDER Electronic Filing Procedures dated November 6 1997 a paper copy of all papers electronically filed with the Court shall be delivered to the chambers of the Judge assigned to the case togethe
15. being debated Some judges take the position that all court documents regarded as public records in hard copy should be made available electronically Other judges are more cautious and may not want every document available for public view on the Internet Therefore they are developing the ability to allow judges to designate certain documents as electronically available while others can be suppressed Filings that are not to be made available simply will not have a hyperlink Electronic availability of the Nationsway case at the Arizona Bankruptcy court 1s a fine example of public records serving the needs of the public The Web site will not recover the bounced http www llrx com extras fed_court htm Page 2 of 3 LLRX New Online Access to Federal Courts 7 29 01 10 41 PM paychecks of the thousands of Nationsway employees who lost their jobs last month However the Web site it is providing them first hand access to information and information 1s power bk EF EF EF EF FEF F b Fr FEF EF EF F EF EF EF EF EF EF F amp F FEF FEF FE A BACK TO TOP OF PAGE LLRX Front Page Bookstore Archives About LLRX Subscribe Comments Privacy Policy d LLRX Law Library Resource Copyright 1996 2001 e Xchange LLC com All rights reserved http www llrx com extras fed court htm Page 3 of 3 Electronic Filing Document Imaging 7 29 01 10 32 PM NATIONAL CENTER FOR STATE COURTS INSTITUTE FOR COURT MANAGEMENT A educating
16. court lenders for over dO years Electronic Filing Document Imaging Course Number 01TC053 April 18 20 2001 Seattle Washington The justice system is sagging under the weight of its paper load With daily requests for information and a continually mounting case Due ta E docket how can documents be stored transferred and retrieved across all branches of the judicial arm to ease this load Information technology has expanded courts into the electronic filing era Some courts have imaging others have public access and most all have computers but how can you bridge technology and the courts to offer Secure Links between the court and all firms of civil litigation This course is designed to easily guide you through a court s venture into electronic filing This course will aide in your understanding of all areas needed in development of electronic filing to help your court save staff time offer additional service and increase revenue for these improved services Group exercises and breakout sessions court developed services individual response time and demonstrations from vendors and court consultants will provide you with an understanding of areas beyond electronic filing Major Topics Electronic filing overview Internet connectivity for electronic filing Electronic Data Interchange EDI for courts Document security Security issues otate by state statues and rules ooftware hardware development cost
17. create digital documents that are not bandwidth intensive until servers hard drives and internet service providers have the space and speed to support broadband transfer For example being able to read a deposition on a Palm pilot or web enabled phone is possible because the words alone are not huge files A scanned image or fancy web graphic will simply bog down the transfer The ability of the Internet digital devices phones PDAs etc to display video or data is directly a function of the available bandwidth Streaming video and audio applications permit the transfer of voice and video often in a choppy format because of bandwidth limitations You may notice much clearer audio and video from sources that stream at higher bandwidth At greater bandwidth internet video conferencing will become much more prevalent Video conferencing over telephone lines with three ISDN lines is a standard or available technology today that permits high quality video with very few drawbacks From the court reporter s standpoint being able to provide a digitized electronic transcript of the record by bit mapping and time stamping the transcript allows for synchronism with video display Real time transcription has been available for some time but in my experience is not prevalent The internet and the growth of fat wire or broadband service will move court reporting to a new level of electronic sophistication For example by simply time stamping the
18. file the document The system will not permit you to make changes to the document s or docket entry filed in error once the transaction has been accepted Viewing Transaction Log This feature selected from the Utilities menu allows you to review all transactions processed with your login and password If you believe or suspect someone is using your login and password without permission change your password immediately then telephone the Court s Help Desk at 1 800 466 9302 as soon as possible User s Manual The most recent version of the User s Manual for the system is always available at http ecf mowd uscourts gov in PDF format CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 7 Missouri Western District Court A Step By Step Guide Below is a step by step guide for entering the system preparing a document for filing filing a motion or application and displaying a docket sheet We suggest that you go through the steps on the training data base before trying to actually file a document How to Access the System Users can get into the system via the Internet by going to http ecf mowd uscourts gov Showlndex Netscape File Edit View Go Communicator Help 2 3 3 2a u d 8 O 4 Back Foward Reload Home Search Netscape Print Security Shop Stop E u Bookmarks JA Location https ecf mowd uscourts gov M EN What s Related H C Web Goodies List Archives h List Archives h Archives of JUD Directory of E A0 DIT SDSD
19. indicated by FPCDATA as the only child or other elements indicated by the name s of the child elements Child elements must appear in the order specified in the content model Where other elements are specified they may be combined by either the or operator or the and operator Elements may also be erouped with parentheses S No children i e empty indicated by the keyword EMPTY In which case element content is contained in one or more attributes S Unspecified children i e any content indicated by the keyword ANY An element defined in this manner may have any element named in the DTD as a child S Both text children and other specified children i e mixed There is one element with mixed content in the court filing DTD DocumentContent In mixed content the other element s may appear anywhere within the textual content In a content model child elements may have special characters appended to the end These characters and their meanings are Appendix A means there shall be at least one child element of this kind and there may be more than one i e one or more s means there may be zero one or more child elements of this kind i e zero one or more means there may be either zero or one child element of this kind i e zero or one No suffix character means there shall be exactly one child element of this kind i e only one non n u Attribute content
20. kelfexplanatory 2 4 ScarsMarksTattoosText T self explanatory 24 DateOfBirth T Dateofbirth TP LL LO 24 _ PlaceOfBirth n Tpocaionofbith J em Messen M define pm dE O A A E A3 Appendix B o a 24 _MatialStaus 4 4 T art status bae E TL Maced Single ete _ 24 Religion T Religious preference TT ea A MEM AA 24 Person________________ jTHumambeng 5 2 4 on Y Mr Honorable etc L 24 Fisen t Persons frst name mm initials 24 lastName TOT Z Persons lastname i Required Court Defined Required Court Defined DTD Defined Q Co o c E 5 0 jum O o O a 24 Suffix E HE Jr PhD ete 2 4 KA a E E Ed ads S mn _ OO i mea Lt Property or other items gt 4 Universal Resource Identifier Key to content Reference page where the diagram for this element is found E E ES 2 4 Telephone T Telephone number Type TIT T Kind of address Court l i zm rS active etc Court ma dens EMNI pere of status 180 5601 Element Name name of the element Required checked if this element or attribute is required to be present This element is optional if not checked Court Defined checked if the receiving court specifies content Open checked if the sender of the message specifi
21. models may be S Textual indicated by the CDATA keyword S A list of values only one of which may be selected i e enumerated S A special type called a token The Court Filing DTD uses only the ID and IDREF tokens The usage indicator may define the attribute as required indicated by REQUIRED implied indicated by IMPLIED or defaulted indicated by the value of the default Implied attributes are treated by the application reading the XML as if the attribute were not present i e there is no default value for an implied attribute The court filmg DTD contains attributes of each kind This is an example of an element with other elements as children and attributes lt ELEMENT Address AddressLine AddressCity AddressCounty AddressState AddressPostalCode AddressCountry gt lt ATTLIST Address Type CDATA REQUIRED gt lt ATTLIST Address Status CDATA IMPLIED gt lt ATTLIST Address StatusDate CDATA IMPLIED gt This element Address may contain the elements AddressLine AddressCity AddressCounty AddressState AddressPostalCode and AddressCountry and when the child is present it must appear in the order specified The first element AddressLine may appear multiple times and must appear at least once The second element AddressCity may only appear once and must be present The third element AddressCounty may appear only once and may be absent i e is optional There are three attributes belongi
22. of the party for whom you are filing the motion to highlight it OR if you represent all defendants or all plaintiffs you may Select a group by clicking in the circle next to the group If the party you represent is not reflected in the party list click Add Create New Party Western District of Missouri System Netscape Query Reports Utilities Logout 6 01 03004 FJG Julian v BurnettPlease select the filer Select the Party OR Select a Group Add Create New Party No Group O All Defendants All Plaintiffs All Parties CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 15 Missouri Western District Court Add Create a New Party Type the first letter for a company name or for an individual the first letter of the party s last name Query Reports E utilities Logout Search for a party Last Business name _Search Clear If a match is found ECF will display a list of party names If the name of the party appears select it from the list and then click the Select Name from List button o Review party information and be sure to Select Party s role in this filing and click on the correct role e Click subr ut CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 16 Missouri Western District Court If the ls search returns No person found you will click CM ECF Western District of Missouri Netscape A Tema Query Reports Utilities Logout Search for a party Last Business n
23. reports and taking home a complete electronic transcript to prepare immediately to prepare for the next deposition See http www livenote com This permits for example using digital video MPEG files synchronized to transcript text stored on CDROMs See also http www summation com ELECTRONIC FILING Despite the growing use of computers in the legal profession authoring and filing legal pleadings remains a labor intensive process that has yet to fully benefit from the potential for automation offered by recent advances in computer technology Efforts are underway however to computerize virtually every aspect of court filing and case management Several courts and government agencies have already begun to supplement or replace their paper based filing systems with electronic filing systems that allow pleadings to be filed over the Internet Some systems also allow parties to access their case files and the court s docket over the Internet These early systems although rudimentary are already facilitating interactions with the courts and are allowing attorneys and courts to recognize significant cost savings The electronic filing systems of tomorrow will further automate the filing process and integrate computer systems for filing case management docketing storage and security Electronic filing systems have the potential to 1 simplify and standardize the process of filing court documents 2 greatly reduce the amount of resources
24. standards under development On March 22 2000 the COSCA NACM Joint Technology Committee reviewed the work eroup s product and accepted it as a Proposed Standard A proposed standard 1s a standard approved for public comment and pilot interoperable implementations Comments will be accepted until November 1 2000 Comments should be sent to the COSCA NACM Joint Technology Committee in care of Dale Kasparek National Center for State Courts 200 Newport Avenue Williamsburg VA 23185 or dkasparek ncsc dni us The Joint Technology Committee particularly seeks comments on data elements required by a court to accept a filing or initiate a new case that are not included within the 1 0 Proposed Standard All comments will be relayed to the Court Filing Work Group of LegalXML After reviewing all comments and considering the results of the pilot interoperable implementations the Court Filing Work Group will recommend a recommended standard to the Joint Technology Committee for its consideration A recommended standard is one deemed appropriate for universal implementation The Joint Technology Committee will review the Work Group s recommendation If it approves the recommendation it will refer the recommended standard to its parent bodies the Conference of State Court Administrators and the National Association for Court Management for their consideration and adoption The parent bodies may choose to refer the recommend
25. the standard will support multiple filings within a single legal envelope to a single court in a single case Each filing will consist of a lead document and attachments if any The Court Filing work group developed the following graphic to show the relationship between the three levels of information lead documents and attachments Design Overview Diagram Filing Information Contains Court Information amp Case Information Lead Document Contains Document Information Document Content amp Attachments Filing Information Contains Court Information amp Case Information Lead Document Contains Document Information Document Content amp Attachments The Proposed Standard is designed to accommodate the following court practices but court rules or policies may limit the options available in that court A More than one filing in a single legal envelope As noted above the Proposed Standard is designed to accommodate the filing of multiple documents simultaneously so long as they pertain to the same case in the same court The specification recognizes however that individual courts may choose to develop systems that will accept only one filing per legal envelope B Filings that initiate a new case The Proposed Standard is intended to include all information needed by courts to accept filings that initiate a new case but a court may decide not to accept such filings C Payments associated with a filing The Proposed
26. this project are http www llrx com extras fed court htm Page 1 of 3 LLRX New Online Access to Federal Courts 7 29 01 10 41 PM Court General Home General Home Page ECF Home ECF Home Page Bankruptcy http ecf azb uscourts gov e er http ecf casb uscourts gov ES sa http ecf ganb uscourts gov de bru d http ecf nysb uscourts gov Virginia Eastern b rt htto ecf vaeb rt Bankruptcy Court WWW Vacd USCOUIIS 20V http ect vaeb uscourts gov ci mal http ecf mowd uscourts gov oa http ecf nyed uscourts gov ten Northern District http ecf ohnd uscourts gov Oregon District Court SOV http ecf ord uscourts gov Gary Bockweg at the US Courts Administrative Office projects that a year from now the initial development and testing will be complete They plan to bring all of the U S district and bankruptcy courts on board and expect full nationwide implementation in four years PACER users pay 60 a minute With Internet access there is no way to charge by the minute While currently free the plan is for ECF users to pay about 07 a page roughly equivalent to 60 a minute Today searching PACER for docket information is usually just the first step You also have to pay between 06 and 25 a page for copies not to mention the cost of postage and Fed Ex When you add it all up 7 cents a page will be a bargain The privacy issue as it pertains to Internet access to federal court records 1s still
27. 90d86dc7e814d2a0a3c3db949a8c63424bf320a9dc90301c65 2 01 03004 FJG Notice will be electronically mailed to 2 01 03004 FJG Notice will not be electronically mailed to NOTE The above example is one screen however you have to scroll down to get all the information available This screen gives you confirmation that the system has received the entry and the document is now an official court document It also tells you the date and time your transaction was received by the court and the number assigned to the document For future reference please note this number on the PDF document file Scroll down to view the entire receipt To print out the receipt click Print on the Netscape Toolbar To save the receipt click on File at the top of the Netscape screen and select Save Frame As Note Pursuant to COURT EN BANC ORDER Electronic Filing Procedures dated November 6 1997 a paper copy of all papers electronically filed with the Court shall be delivered to the chambers of the Judge assigned to the case together with a copy of the Notice of Electronic Filing until the judge assigned to the case orders otherwise See Note on page 12 If parties are not receiving notice electronically it is your responsibility to serve them with hard copies of all documents and attachments at the address listed under Notice will not be electronically mailed to CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 20 Missouri Western District Cour
28. E mail information button that 1s at the bottom of the screen after you have clicked on Maintain Your Account zz Lu Plz 3A Western District of Missouri Netscape dis gt E RE a E https ect mowed uscaurts gov cg binelogin pl 5b8b75z548217773 L 790 D 1 Query Reports Utilities Logout E mail information for guestA TY 0700775 A Ign m Send the notices specified below to my primary e mail address O to these additional addresses E Send notices in cases m which I am involved O Send notices in these additional cases Send a notice for each filing O Send a Daily Summary Report This area will allow you to enter a primary e mail address and separate from that additional addresses for noticing There is also a new checkbox to indicate if the notices should be sent to the primary e mail address Attorneys would uncheck this box if s he wanted the Notice of Electronic Filing e mailed to someone else in their firm to keep track of their cases All attorneys should review their current e mail setup to ensure that it is as you want it For those users who currently have both the individual e mail and summary e mail turned on the new release will only provide you with summary e mail If you would rather have individual notices you must make a change to your account Once you have made your changes in the screen depicted above you would then click on Return to account screen and then cli
29. HIGH TECH DEPOSITIONS AND ELECTRONIC TRIAL TECHNIQUES iB n AE Dus l HI ii dle al AGA La in uns 3 xxu ER E David Randolph Smith Esq DAVID RANDOLPH SMITH amp ASSOCIATES 1910 Acklen Avenue Nashville Tennessee 37212 Phone 615 742 1775 Fax 615 742 1223 E mail info drslawfirm com NCRA Annual Convention New Orleans Louisiana August 2 5 2001 INTRODUCTION THE COURTHOUSE Is NOW WIRED HIGH TECH TRIAL PRACTICE Is HERE AND HERE TO STAY Courtrooms and lawyers long steeped in a tradition of low tech presentation methods in which chalkboards easels or paper charts were the tools of the trade are now entering the digital age State of the art courtrooms are being built or converted throughout the country Trials and courtrooms now offer the ability to present evidence by video and data computer presentation Electronic filing will be the norm and video conferences depositions and internet use will be everyday business for trial lawyers and court reporters The electronic filing of court documents is now mandatory in some pilot jurisdictions and the entire federal court system will soon have electronic filing in all federal districts The pilot project by the Administrative Office of the U S Courts is called ECF Electronic Case Files See http www llrx com extras fed_court htm http www courts net efiling htm Internet access to case records is currently availab
30. Proposed Standard is a technical document difficult for persons not conversant with the technology to comprehend This document has been prepared to provide judges court administrators lawyers and other persons working in the legal system with a non technical introduction to and explanation of the Proposed Standard The Joint Technology Committee hopes that the recipients of this document will take the time to become familiar with the topic and to review and comment on the Proposed Standard The process for submitting comments and the further process contemplated by the Joint Technology Committee are described further at the end of this document The document addresses the following topics l an executive summary an overview of XML 3 the role of XML in communicating data among courts lawyers and other legal system entities particularly for electronic filing systems 4 an overview of the scope of the 1 0 Proposed Standard 5 specific understandings incorporated into the 1 0 Proposed Standard 6 an explanation of the process for developing and commenting upon the 1 0 Proposed Standard and T future plans for LegalX ML Court Filing Standards There are three appendices to the document A how to read a DTD B a table showing each of the proposed data elements its tag its attributes and its relationship to other elements and C version 1 0 specification Comments will be accepted until November 1 2000 Comments should be sent t
31. Standard includes data elements needed to accept a payment However a court may refuse to accept filings that have associated filing fees or payments D Hypertext links to documents that reside elsewhere The Proposed Standard would allow a filer to submit a hyperlink to a document in lieu of the document itself Courts unwilling to accept filings unless they have possession of the electronic document on their own computer may refuse to accept such hyperlink filings E Certificate of Service The Proposed Standard allows multiple recipients to be listed using To CC and BCC elements Courts may specify that these elements do or do not satisfy Certificate of Service requirements The Proposed Standard does require that any electronic filing application whether developed by a court or by a commercial service provider must have the capability to return a confirmation of receipt of the filing to the filer The confirmation signifies only that the court has received the filing The Proposed Standard does not attempt to create standard names for court documents Filers and the applications that support them will be required to obtain from the court a list of the document names used by that court and to ensure that the filing includes one of those accepted terms for the document name The Proposed Standard does not yet set forth the means by which a court will inform users of the court s policies with respect to electronic filing its acceptab
32. Way to Electronic Court Records by Roger Winters and Robert Cary published in the July August 2000 issue of E Doc describing the experience of a comprehensive electronic filing program for the Superior Court in King County Seattle Washington http www courts net efiling htm Page 4 of 6 Courts net E filing 7 29 01 10 33 PM The LexisOne service offers Electronic Court Filing Past Present and Future by Robert Plotkin of LegalXML Cybersleuther is anew company consisting of Gayle and Tom O Connor veterans in this area Their site offers its own e filing page with links to a new and very impressive newsletter on the subject E Filing Report published by Glasser LegalWorks Making Way for Intelligence in Case Space by Philip Greenspun of the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyn and Marc Lauritsen of Harvard Law School published as part of the MIT Journal of Computer Aided Litigation Online docket access CourtLink 1s a service which uses its own software interface to permit searching of court records on multiple servers Coverage includes most Federal courts and many or all courts in about seven states CourtExpress 1s a new service which lets users search names track cases and order documents directly from U S Bankruptcy and District Courts nationwide This service was reviewed at the Law Library Resource Exchange site in August 1999 DM2000 1s a combination of a docket management software program and online service which i
33. alue lt ATTLIST LegalEnvelope Version CDATA FIXED 1 0 gt This is a textual attribute and has a required value of 1 0 If the attribute is not present the processing application treats the XML document as though it contained the required value An attribute of LeadDocumentDisposition contains a selection enumerated list lt ATTLIST LeadDocumentDisposition FilingDisposition TransmissionError Acknowledged Received Accepted Partial Deferred Rejected REQUIRED gt This attribute has a list of possible values and one from that list must be present Appendix B o ho AA WEN element for all HH present must be A 0 um LC XML documents 21 1 Messageldentification IL IT dentitymessage E A 2 1 4 From T Identify sender 4 return address 211 ReplyTo ________ TRetumaddress 2141 To TT Receiver I i H E CCT use Q Co o c E 5 0 jum O o O a Required Court Defined Empty D Required Court Defined TD Defined 2 ION E INS AE AAA 241 8064 T human use use OO bid coa TERRE D A N addressee 2 Creation T Message creation date do SS and time me lE HH alidated a L HL documents A ATA E ransactions iling transaction assigned Court may define 2 2 4 Filinglnformation T Information not in T Identify filing document iif Request to court or court assigned Court may defi
34. ame m o _Search Clear Party search results No person found Add the party information to complete this screen Be sure to Select Party s role in this filing and click on the correct role Click Submit Western District of Missouri System Netscape Utilities Logout Last name Middle name SSN Office Address 2 City County Phone E mail ProSe Role 3rd party plaintiff Gpp pty E Party text CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 17 Missouri Western District Court To Submit a PDF Document o The next screen prompts you to select the PDF filename of the document being filed The file MUST be in a PDF format with a PDF suffix If not it will not be readable by the system If an attempt is made to upload a non PDF file or make a standard docket entry without also submitting a document an error message will appear Western District of Missouri System Netscape Query Reports Utilities Logout 6 01 03004 FJG Julian v Burnett Select the pdf document for example C1199cv501 21 pdf Filename Attachments to Document No Yes Click on the button to navigate to the appropriate directory and file to select the document Use the mouse to select the directory in which the PDF version of the file is located CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 18 Missouri Western District Court Change the Files of type from Files of type IHTML Files to
35. and placed upon the internet at an FTP site or website with secure password access Anybody who wanted copies of the deposition or documents could then read the documents and then order their printing with delivery at a local Kinko s The delivery of depositions over the internet by e mail would be greatly enhanced by the adoption and use of the Adobe PDF format or other e transcript systems Websites now for example pay all of your bills by having the bills sent by mail to a firm that scans all of the bills and provides you the information and password to read the scanned bills VIDEO CONFERENCING The ability to perform video conferencing permits the deposing of witnesses anywhere without leaving town A number of vendors provide high quality video conferencing equipment including e g Polycom http www polycom com Tandberg http ww w tandbergusa com PictureTel http www picturetel com home aspl Technologies over the internet also include LiveNote over the internet digital video recording of the video conference and secure e mail delivery of the transcript See http ww w livenote com Interactive real time links the computer court reporter and attorney s computer to see an instant visual display of the testimony in real time using LiveNote or Summation This permits marking an important text on the fly with a simple tap of the space bar and running searches to locate and read back a testimony any time and generating
36. bility to specify the meaning of text provides a number of significant benefits Once the meaning of text in a document has been specified software can quickly and accurately extract information from the document For example if an electronic court filing includes a caption that identifies the parties docket number court etc using appropriate XML tags the receiving court s case management software can extract the caption information and automatically enter the filing in an electronic case file without any human intervention Furthermore the inclusion of XML tags in a document enables documents to be searched more quickly and accurately In the example above a search of the court s database for documents filed by attorney John Jones would extract only those documents in which John Jones is identified as the filing attorney and not any documents in which the text John Jones appears in other contexts If you have been frustrated by the inaccuracy of results obtained from today s Internet search engines you can understand the potential benefits of documents whose contents have been appropriately categorized A number of efforts are already underway to develop XML based standards and systems for electronic filing For example Rich Himes of the U S District Court for the District of New Mexico has developed the XML Court Interface XCI an XML based electronic filing system The National Center for State Courts in conjunction with Lexis Nexis
37. ble electronically but at a significant cost More recently there has been a good deal of attention paid to internet posting of judicial opinions since the new technology now makes it conceivable that opinions can be provided without cost to users Since this poses a threat to companies which are in the business of publishing judicial opinions there has been a great deal of controversy about some of the efforts and proposals Our Home Page includes a list of links to sources of judicial opinions posted on various web sites both those maintained by the courts and those maintained by outside groups We have previously posted some pages on topics related to electronic filing Each of the pages includes links to other pages and resources on the issues it addresses e Proposals for a Public Domain Citation System e Proposals for adoption of the Adobe Portable Document Format for the posting of judicial opinions The U S District Court for the Southern District of New York provides two services which go beyond simply posting copies of judicial opmions CourtWeb 1s billed as on Online Rulings Information System permitting participating judges to post copies of their rulings in pending motions on the site The court also provides a WatchList which will notify counsel by e mail whenever new postings are added for selected watched cases Incoming files The filing of paper pleadings with the court imposes significant burdens on the court s personnel a
38. by national standards and the need to accommodate the particularities of local court rules and practices The most likely way to ensure that the right balance is struck is for members for all potentially affected constituencies attorneys judges information technology professionals and law firm and court staff to be represented in the standards development process Open organizations such as Legal XML are attempting to encourage such involvement by facilitating participation over the Internet by anyone who is interested in being involved Another ongoing challenge is to develop electronic filing standards that will facilitate the integration of electronic filing systems with other technologies For example electronic filing standards will need to address methods for data authentication security and integrity Development of electronic filing standards also may require enabling legislation and modifications to rules of procedure and local court rules Furthermore implementation of electronic filing standards will require extensive education and training Development of successful standards for electronic court filing will require effective http www lexisone com practicemanagement pmlibrary electroniccourtfiling html Page 3 of 4 Electronic Filing Past Present and Future 7 29 01 9 49 PM communication between legal professionals and computer professionals Given the complexity of the technical subject matter and the rapid pace of techn
39. ck on Submit to make the changes CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 33 Missouri Western District Court Displaying a Docket Sheet Query Reports Utilities Logout o Click on Reports This displays the Reports Menu listing the reports that can be produced o Click on Docket Sheet o Western District of Missouri System Netscape ior iiajn micie https feck mond uecourts gov cgi bin login pl 7 7661 8391113281 L_790_0 1 Query Reports Utilities Logout Docket Sheet Calendar Events Cases Filed ie western D Query Reports Utilities Logout Docket Sheet Case Number i 99 12545 1 29 c 12345 or 1 99 cv 12345 Sort docket text using the Filing date Sort docket text using the Enter date Display docket text in ascending order Display docket text in descending order C Include terminated parties CO Include links to Notice of Electronic Filing M Include Caption SatDme End Dates fd Start Document Range C End Document E ange CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 34 Missouri Western District Court Specify whether the entries should be displayed in ascending or descending document number order by clicking in the appropriate circle Specify whether the entries should be displayed by filing date or entry date by clicking in the appropriate circle Click on Include links to Notice of Electronic Filing to view the Notice of Electronic Filing for each doc
40. d effect on the transcription of testimony and the function of court reporting INTEGRATING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY INTO DISCOVERY DEPOSITIONS AND CASE PRESENTATIONS It is now apparent that the Internet and digital technology will be the dominant forces for everyone in e commerce including lawyers Electronic filing which was used in courts in Singapore and Finland since the mid 1990s will be become mainstays of trial practice These technologies with video and digital presentations are an extremely effective to bring a case to life in a way that the factfinder judge and client will appreciate This presentation focuses on legal and practical issues associated with these technologies and provides examples BECOMING DIGITAL Essential to any understanding of how trial testimony and multimedia will be presented in the coming years is an understanding of bits and bandwidth Bits are the discrete pieces of information that a computer processes by assigning combinations of the digits 0 and 1 assigned to a particular piece of information character letter word or image to permit bit mapping by assigning a 0 or 1 or a series of 0 s or 1 s to each individual bit of information The ability to transfer large bits of information is a function of bandwidth To create and display data for video increasing bandwidth is critical Similarly scanning a picture or document involves far more bits or pixels of information and thus the aim should be to
41. ded Complaint Motion for order to show cause Bankruptcy appeal Motion for partial summary judgment Complaint Motion for permanent injunction Complaint Intervenor Motion for preliminary injunction Complaint Third Party Motion for protective order Counterclaim Motion for reconsideration Crossclaim Motion for sanctions Notice of removal Motion for separate mental examination Transfer in Motion for summary judgment Motion for verdict as matter of law directed Service of Process Motion for writ Return of service Motion in limine Return of service of complaint executed Motion to alter amend Return of service of complaint executed on USA Motion to amend Return of service of complaint unexecuted Motion to change transfer venue Waiver of service of summons Motion to clarify Motion to compel Answer to Complaint Motion to consolidate cases Motion to continue Other Answers Motion to dismiss case Amended answer Motion to dismiss party Answer to complaint Motion to disqualify judge Answer to notice of removal Motion to enforce Objections to Report and Recommendation Motion to exclude Objections to bill of costs Motion to intervene Reply to objections to bill of costs Motion to invest funds Response to order Motion to join Response to reply to objections to bill of costs Motion to lift stay Traverse Motion to produce Motion to quash Motions amp Related Filings Motion to remand case Motions Motion to seal case Motion for TRO Motion to seal document Mo
42. deposition transcript by synchronizing the court reporter s computer to digital video this will permit very powerful trial settlement video presentations By digitally synchronizing the video testimony with the electronic transcript this permits the video deposition to be shown side by side on the screen at the same time including exhibits Visionary Re Viewer File Options Video Image Search View tiles Help Page 1 ESAMIMATION BY MR GLENN 2 THE WITNESS SALLY NEALEY 3 0 Ms Mealey atthis time am going to show you a 4 fine page document or which states atthe tap of 5 ofthe paga Jellglow Inc Employee Handbook b WOuld vou please take a minute ta look at that document and tell me if vou ve ever seen that before o A Tes llave 4 0 Andisthatthe Employee Handbook for Jellglow 10 Incorporated 11 Yes itis 12 d Dowou know if Mr Smith kept a copy of that 13 in his office 14 A es he did 15 Haw do vau know that 16 A Because filed it there 174 Did vou handle all of Mr Smith s filing for him 18 A Yes did 18 Alright the second document am going to 43 ll 20 showwyouis a two page document that would appearto be an excerpt from an employment agreement 9 gl 22 Would you Take a moment to look at that 43 andtellmaifyauve seen those pages before 4 A Yes qupd 25 Q Ok where have vou seen them before Tu bo f Page 2 Lok yf l asbei ype 4 Al inafileino
43. devoted to paper file generation manipulation storage and retrieval 3 reduce errors in copying and transcription 4 and facilitate access to and sharing of court documents A large and growing number of legal and computer professionals have recognized the benefits that would result from the widespread adoption of electronic court filing systems and are actively working on developing nationwide open non proprietary and publicly accessible technological standards for electronic court filing And the success of such efforts will require the continued and growing involvement of all segments of the legal profession Paper documents are the lifeblood of attorneys Attorneys are intimately familiar with the details of authoring revising and analyzing paper documents and with the administrative tasks of filing exchanging and storing such documents We are all equally familiar with the magnitude of the resources that are devoted to performing such administrative tasks Costs of paper toner printer upkeep and repairs photocopying postage courier services and document storage and retrieval can be extremely burdensome for parties attorneys and courts Although the idea of increasing efficiency by generating and filing documents electronically is not a new one the advent of the World Web Wide has significantly boosted interest in electronic filing The technological standards underlying the Web and the infrastructure that has been develop
44. e Hear button allows you to clear the Login and Password entries so they may be re entered If an invalid combination has been submitted the system responds with an error message Click on Pack then re enter your login and password The entry of a valid login and password combination prompts the system to display the Main Menu Once the Main Menu appears choose from a list of hyperlinked options on the top bar CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 9 Missouri Western District Court rode Fide Western District of Missouri Netscape Reports utilities UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI Case Management i AME CM ECF U S District Court Western District of Missouri Civil Cases Only Official Court Electronic Document Filing System RUP Note that the date you last logged into the system appears at the bottom left of this screen You should review this information each time you login for security reasons If you believe your last login date and time are incorrect or suspect an unauthorized party is using your login and password please telephone the court s Help Desk at 1 800 466 9302 as soon as possible The following text appears beneath the above screen This facility is for Official Court Business only Activity to and from this site is logged Document filings on this system are subject to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 11 Evidence of unauthorized or criminal activity will
45. e Number Authorized Signatures Giged Typed Signed Typed Date This form which will be kept on file in the Clerk s Office shall remain in effect until specifically revoked in writing It is the responsibility of the attorney firm named herein to notify the Clerk s office Finance Section of the new expiration date when a credit card has been renewed or if a card has been canceled or revoked 42 Revision Date May 2001 SAMPLE FORMAT IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI DIVISION Plaintiff s VS Case No Defendant s NOTICE OF ENDORSEMENT Pursuant to the ECF Procedures Manual Section C 2 d Pla or Dft hereby certifies that my original signature was placed on the following document which was filed electronically on Joint Proposed Scheduling Order Stipulation of Dismissal Joint Motion for Other 0000 Attorney for Plaintiff or Defendant Address Date 43 Revision Date May 2001 COSCA NACM Joint Technology Committee in care of Dale Kasparek National Center for State Courts 200 Newport Avenue Williamsburg VA 23185 or dkasparek Q ncsc dni us 1 Executive Summary The widespread adoption of electronic filing systems offers great benefits for all participants in the legal system But the existence of multiple incompatible electronic filing systems creates the potential for a legal system counterpart to the bibl
46. e briefs by including them in one of three formats ASCII Word 6 0 or lower and WordPerfect DOS 5 1 or lower as an attachment to an e mail message As a help for attorneys who need it the court includes a page with very explicit directions on how to send the message including a link to the address to which the message 1s to be sent The pleading or brief must still be filed on paper with the clerk as well The Small Claims Division of the Pima County Arizona Consolidated Justice Courts has established an electronic filing system in conjunction with Law On Line Inc a vendor of electronic forms Of interest 1s the practice area which allows users to try the system out using a fictitious name and matter The interface 1s quite user friendly The Fairfax Virginia County Bar Association has set up its Electronic Filing Pilot Project Registered users limited to parties or to attorneys who practice in the Commonweath of Virginia may upload files in Acrobat format and anyone may view the files by using a search form This appears to be a new endeavor and only sample pleadings have been uploaded http www courts net efiling htm Page 2 of 6 Courts net E filing 7 29 01 10 33 PM The court in Shawnee County Kansas has established an unusual electronic filing project It is amazingly complex in its structure and apparently is intended for highly regularized and repeated filings such as those involved in debt collection cases A user fam
47. e for Official Court Business only Unauthorized entry is prohibited and subject to prosecution under Title 18 of the U S Code All activities and access attempts are logged Instructions Enter your ECF login and password for electronic filing capabilities If you do not need filing capabilities enter your PACER login and password If you do not have a PACER login contact the PACER Service Center to establish an account You may register online at http pacer psc uscourts gov or call the PACER Service Center at 800 676 6856 or 210 301 6440 In the future an access fee of 07 per page as approved by the Judicial Conference of the United States at its September 1998 session will be assessed for access to this service All inquiries will be charged to your PACER account If you do not need filing capabilities enter your PACER login and password The Client code is provided to the PACER user as a means of tracking transactions by client This code can be up to thirty two alphanumeric characters long Authentication Login Password client code Login Clear CM ECF has been tested and works correctly with Netscape 4 6x and 4 7x SR em Bu 3 de gu wel Enter your Login and User Password in the appropriate data entry fields Then click on the Login button to transmit the information to the system If an error is made before you are submitted the screen th
48. e the file giving it the extension PDF Accept the option and the file is converted to a PDF document Version 9 Use above method or Open the document Click on the File menu and select Publish to PDF Save the file as a PDF file giving it a PDF extension The file is now in Adobe PDF format under the newly designated name and the original document remains in its original form under the original name For Microsoft Word 95 or later Open the document Click on the File menu and select Create Adobe PDF Save the file as a PDF file giving it a PDF extension The file is now in Adobe PDF format under the newly designated name and the original document remains in its original form under the original name CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 5 Missouri Western District Court Any other word processing program o Open the document to be converted e Select the Print option and in the dialog box select the option to change the selected printer A drop down menu with a list of printer choices is displayed o Select Adobe PDF Writer o Print the file The file should not actually print out instead the option to save the file as a PDF format file appears e Name the file giving it the extension PDF o Accept the option and the file 1s converted to a PDF document Depending on the word processing program being used it may be necessary to find the printer selection option elsewhere At that point c
49. ed standard to further certifying bodies such as the Justice Department s Global Justice Information Advisory Committee T Future plans for LegalXML Court Filing Standards The LegalXML Court Filing Work Group is working on a Proposed Standard 2 0 that will define data elements and tags for use within legal documents 10 Appendix A l How to read a DTD Each data element has a content model which contains the tag by which the data is identified and what content is allowed for this element A data element may also have attributes which serve to differentiate e g different types of numbers or qualify e g is this a new case or an existing case or otherwise distinguish this data from other similar data The following examples from the Court Filing DTD are used to explain how to read a content model Element content models begin with the characters lt ELEMENT followed by the name of the element followed by the content definition enclosed in parentheses followed by the character gt Attribute content models begin with the characters lt ATTLIST followed by the name of the element followed by the name of the attribute followed by the content definition of the attribute followed by the usage indicator ending with the gt character The content model for a particular data element may define content as one of S Child elements only Child elements may be either but not both text
50. ed to support such standards provide a convenient relatively inexpensive and increasingly ubiquitous means for electronic communication that provides a natural foundation for electronic filing systems What capabilities will tomorrow s electronic filing systems provide The features of several existing electronic filing systems provide an inkling of what to expect in the future For example since 1997 the U S District Court for the Northern District of California has required that all complaints and pleadings in securities class actions be filed with the Securities Class Action Clearinghouse an electronic filing system accessible over the Internet and maintained by the Stanford University Law School The full text of more than 2 000 complaints briefs orders and other filings is now searchable online through the Clearinghouse The U S District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania uses the MDL 1203 Web based Docket and Document Delivery System to consolidate information about pending fen phen litigation The system s Web site provides access to docket entries for every filing made in mo 1203 the text of all documents filed by the Court and the Special Master and the text of all attorney filed documents that relate to 100 or more individual MDL 1203 actions The Washtenaw County Trial Court in Michigan allows attorneys to file briefs in the civil division by sending the brief as an email attachment to a specified email address The P
51. ed upon standard will allow the transmission of data among multiple lawyers agencies and courts all continuing to use their individualized automated systems seamlessly But for that to happen courts will have to adopt and require lawyers and other entities with whom they interact electronically to adopt a single XML standard for the data to be transmitted 4 The scope of the 1 0 Proposed Standard The Proposed Standard deals only with the data needed to transmit a document to a court for filing electronically and to receive confirmation of the filing by the court It does not deal with the automated electronic filing systems that courts and commercial service providers will build to support electronic filing And it does not deal with court case management information systems To take advantage of the Proposed Standard a court will need to create purchase or have access to a system that would receive and manage documents in electronic form and an interface that would allow its case management information system to accept the data transmitted in the standard XML format In developing the Proposed Standard the Court Filing work group tried to include all information a court would need to have to know from whom a document has been received and what the document is It also tried to include all data needed by any court to create the docket entry for the document in the court s case management information system For a document init
52. ents for all cases assigned to this system It assumes a working knowledge of Netscape and Adobe Acrobat For questions regarding Netscape or Adobe Acrobat please refer to their instruction manuals Help Desk Telephone the Court s Help Desk at 1 800 466 9302 between the hours of 8 30 A M and 5 00 P M Monday through Friday if you need assistance Capabilities of System The electronic filing system allows registered participants with Internet accounts and Netscape software to perform the following functions o Access the Court s web page o Download the most recent version of the User s Manual o Train persomnel on a training system comparable to the official live system o Electronically file pleadings and documents in actual live cases o View official docket sheets and documents associated with cases o View various reports e g Cases Filed Report Calendar for cases filed electronically e Download Netscape Browser and Portable Document Format PDF configuration information CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 1 Missouri Western District Court Requirements Hardware and Software Requirements The hardware and software needed to electronically file view and retrieve case documents are the following Note A personal computer running a standard platform such as Windows Windows 95 or Macintosh An Internet provider using Point to Point Protocol PPP Netscape Navigator software version 4 5 4 7 or
53. es content Empty checked if the element can not have textual content Le if an element has child elements only or if the element has attributes with no textual content only Purpose description or purpose of the element Attribute Name the name of an attribute for an element DTD Defined checked if the DTD defines allowable values for this attribute Comment description or other comments about the attribute 10
54. es of information For example a pleading could include tags for the parties the number of the case the judge the nature of the pleading the causes of action legal arguments and requests for relief contained in the pleading Conceptually all of this information would then be available to a receiver of that document for automatic entry of the tagged information into the receiver s data base For courts and lawyers it is possible to enter information into case management information systems and law office management systems without the need for clerks or secretaries to perform the key strokes to enter the information into the computer if someone else has already entered it For electronic filing it is essential that multiple outside users of court electronic document systems be able to communicate with multiple court applications through a single medium of information exchange It is unreasonable to expect that courts will all adopt the same case management information system or the same electronic filing system It is equally unreasonable to expect that every law firm will use the same process for developing and electronically transmitting court documents to courts and other attorneys in the case If law firms must become conversant with different electronic filing interfaces for every court within which they practice the administrative burden will be overwhelming We will have created a legal Tower of Babel Use of XML supported by a single agre
55. estb Cad E CUP aud 12 Options tor Pili aC ORIDISIDE 5 desse ita A a a d ada 12 Pauling a Motomor Appica OM prlde 13 Add Create a NeW Nu lunc m 16 Tossubmt a POF dC tallada tie ecto 18 Attachments to Documents till a e idos 19 When attachments and exhibits are in paper fOrMat oocccccccnnncnnnonnnonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnonnnnnnonnninnnss 21 Read Doce ts 23 Refining the deserption or the documenta caca ada 26 Submitibe a Proposed Ordena 30 Piling Proposed Documents aaa 30 Filing Other Types of Documents aso 30 E mail Notification When Documents are Flled oooooonnnnnnninininininnnnnnnnnnnnononnnornnnrnnnr non nn nn non nn nan nn nro nr nro rn nn rn nnnnnnos 31 Maintain X O01 AC COU Macaco 31 Displaying aWOCKEL 3Beet sce iei s media cuts tod E Utica t uere dito orae uae ates 34 Displayins Other INS POLS ooo i o itis ais 36 Known Problems and TroubleshOoOLWg deitate ias 37 IO OWT ro plena 37 Converting documents to DE eoi aa a E etel pee 37 Cannot lobin to the LEV ESS YS TEM oie eo Eee bete a 37 Trouble shooUDte H MEss o 31 BCP Document Type Tabios 25 uum coto st costes a def us 38 Attornev ParacipanuIeeistration POMO ii 40 N tice of Endorsement 555 A ais 43 Electronic Case Files System User s Manual Getting Started Introduction This manual provides instructions on how to use the Electronic Filing System to file documents with the court or to view and retrieve docket sheets and docum
56. facsimile or authorized e mail 6 The undersigned attorney participant agrees to abide by the most recent General Order Administrative Procedures for Electronic Case Filing Manual and all technical and procedural requirements set forth therein For District Court return to one of the following addresses U S District Court U S District Court U S District Court Western District of Missouri 1400 U S Courthouse PO Box 1340 Attn ECF Registrations 222 John Q Hammons Pkw Jefferson City MO 63102 400 East 9 Street Room 1510 Springfield MO 65806 Kansas City Missouri 64106 If for Bankruptcy only please return to U S Bankruptcy Court Western District of Missouri Attn Roberta Kostrow Operations Manager 400 E 9 Street Room 1510 Kansas City MO 64106 Applicant Signature Initial of First amp Last Name Last 4 Digits SS Subscribed and sworn to before me this day of 20 Notary My commission expires 41 Revision Date May 2001 United States District Bankruptcy Court Western District of Missouri CREDIT CARD AUTHORIZATION FORM Attorney Name Firm hereby authorizes the United States District Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Missouri to charge the following credit card number s for payment of identified Court related expenses PLEASE TYPE OR PRINT Visa Number Exp Date Mastercard Number Exp Date American Express Exp Date Discover Exp Date Name Address City State Zip Code Telephon
57. firm that the content of the document is acceptable to all persons required to sign the document and shall obtain the physical signatures of all parties on the document b The filing party or attorney then shall file the document electronically indicating the signatories e g s Jane Doe s John Doe etc c The filing party or attorney shall retain the hardcopy of the document containing the original signatures as provided by paragraph 4 b of the Court en banc Order of November 6 1997 d No later than the first business day after the document has been electronically filed each person required to sign the document shall file a Notice of Endorsement see page 45 for sample form of the document The document shall be deemed fully executed upon the filing of all Notices of Endorsement that are due Options for Filing a Complaint If you file your complaint before 2 00 p m present the Clerk s office with a Civil Cover Sheet JS 44c and the complaint which lists the case party information and a check money order or credit card in the amount of 150 00 OR fax the civil cover sheet complaint and pay the filing fee over the phone by credit card The Clerk will open your case and notify you by phone that your case is open and it is available for you to electronically file your complaint OR You may present us with a Civil Cover Sheet JS 44c check money order or credit card in the amount of 150 00 and your complain
58. g will however need to ensure that those without computer access are not disadvantaged by the adoption of electronic filing systems Courts could for example provide public access through computer kiosks Members of the public also should be able to access electronic filing systems from Web connected computers at libraries and community resource centers Current efforts to develop standards Those involved in developing electronic filing systems have increasingly come to the conclusion that national technological standards for electronic filing systems must be developed Although local efforts have and will continue to play an essential role the emerging consensus is that nationwide open standards are necessary to e Spur the widespread development of electronic filing systems by software vendors e Stimulate courts to adopt such systems e Ensure that such systems are capable of interacting with each other Promulgation of nationwide standards by the legal profession also will send a clear message to software vendors that the systems they develop must comply with such standards to be successful in the marketplace A large and rapidly increasing number of individuals and http www lexisone com practicemanagement pmlibrary electroniccourtfiling html Page 2 of 4 Electronic Filing Past Present and Future 7 29 01 9 49 PM organizations are working on developing such standards and virtually all of them have converged on the XML XML s a
59. gal technology products will make it easier for firms and courts to mix and match components from different vendors thereby reducing reliance on suites of products from individual vendors and improving product quality by introducing more competition among products Although development of standards for electronic filing and the implementation of actual systems that comply with such standards may appear to be daunting tasks initial efforts demonstrate that such standards and systems can be developed incrementally to facilitate development and mitigate costs and that their advantages by far outweigh their disadvantages Electronic filing systems and related technologies will make work for everyone in the legal profession easier and will smooth the wheels of justice The technological hurdles to electronic filing can be overcome All that remains is for us to actively participate in the development of the next generation of electronic filing systems so that we can ensure that they achieve their full potential Robert Plotkin is an intellectual property attorney specializing in high technology law He is a member of Legal XML a nonprofit organization that develops and promotes electronic filing standards for the legal profession He can be reached at rplotkin rplotkin com or on the Web at www rplotkin com Reprinted with permission from the Boston Bar Journal a publication of the Boston Bar Association Back to Practice Management Legal Re
60. ge and security Several courts and government agencies have already begun to supplement or replace their LEXIS NEXIS BY CREDIT CARO LAWCOMMERCE COM LAWYER LOCATOR Electronic filing systems have the potential to SHEPARD S CITATIONS LexisNexis BOOKSTORE e Simplify and standardize the process of filing court documents e Greatly reduce the amount of resources devoted to paper file generation manipulation HELP CONTACT US storage and retrieval SITE MAP VIEW ASSOCIATES e Reduce errors in copying and transcription e Facilitate access to and sharing of court documents A large and growing number of legal and computer professionals have recognized the benefits that would result from the widespread adoption of electronic court filing systems and are actively working on developing nationwide open non proprietary and publicly accessible technological standards for electronic court filing And the success of such efforts will require the continued and growing involvement of all segments of the legal profession Paper Filing Paper documents are the lifeblood of attorneys Attorneys are intimately familiar with the details of authoring revising and analyzing paper documents and with the administrative tasks of filing exchanging and storing such documents We are all equally familiar with the magnitude of the resources that are devoted to performing such administrative tasks Costs of paper toner p
61. hange the printer to Adobe PDF Writer and follow the directions above Basics User Interactions There are three general types of user interactions allowed by the system e Entering data o Using command buttons to tell the system what to do next Clicking on hyperlinks Command buttons and hyperlinks are used to instruct the system what to do next Conventions used in this Manual Data to be entered by the user is shown enclosed in angle brackets lt data to be entered gt o Command buttons are represented in this manual in bracketed boldface typel o Hyperlinks are represented in underlined boldface type CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 6 Missouri Western District Court Documents Filed In Error A document incorrectly filed in a case may be the result of posting the wrong PDF file to a docket entry or selecting the wrong document type from the menu or simply entering the wrong case number and not catching the error before the transaction 1s completed To request a correction telephone Toll Free Help Desk 1 800 466 9302 or Kansas City Bill Terry 816 512 5055 Jefferson City Glenda Curl 573 636 6124 Springfield Jane Kollmeyer 417 865 3869 as soon as possible after an error is discovered Be sure to have the case number and document number for which the correction 1s being requested If appropriate the court will make an entry indicating that the document was filed in error You will be advised if you need to re
62. has published a draft paper entitled Concepts for a Judicial XML Namespace amp Data Tag Dictionary that outlines the beginnings of an XML based legal document format The Washington State Bar has an XML Study Group that is promoting the development of XML based standards The Joint Technology Committee JTC of the Conference of State Court Administrators COSCA and the National Association of Court Managers NACM is working on developing a Joint Federal and State Court XML Standard for electronic court case filing Last year the JTC partnered with Legal XML to jointly develop XML court filing standards Legal XML Legal XML which is currently the primary focus of XML based standards activity is a non profit organization founded in 1998 and comprised of volunteer members from private industry non profit organizations government and academia Legal XML s mission is to develop open non proprietary technical standards for legal documents and related applications Although the standards proposed by Legal XML have no binding force the organization is working to establish its credibility through the breadth and depth of its membership and the quality of the standards it will promulgate Membership in the organization is open to anyone but active participation in the development of proposed standards requires agreement to the organization s Operating Rules which in relevant part require that participants relinquish any intellectual property claim
63. iating a case for instance a civil complaint or petition or a criminal indictment or information the objective is to include all data needed to create a new case on the court s case management information system The work group began with the understanding that the Proposed Standard would be created in anticipation that some electronic filing applications would allow the transmission of multiple filings in a single legal envelope provided the filings were for the same case in the same court The Proposed Standard therefore has three levels of information The first is the legal envelope within which the document is transmitted The second is information about the filing being transmitted filing information The third is information about particular documents included in the filing document information The Proposed Standard does not attempt to specify data elements or tags for information contained within the document to be filed The document can be either text a URL pointing to the document or a BLOB binary large object BLOBs can be images PDFs portable document format word processing files or encoded XML documents Because the Proposed Standard does not apply to the format of legal documents to be filed in a court it will not require lawyers to change the tools they currently use to create documents 5 Specific understandings incorporated into the 1 0 Proposed Standard As mentioned above
64. ical Tower of Babel in which lawyers and other court users and their computers are unable to communicate because every court uses a different electronic filing language The Proposed LegalXML Court Filing Standard 1 0 has been developed to serve as a universal translator among different electronic filing systems Electronic filing is the term used by courts to refer to the use of electronic rather than paper documents in the judicial process It encompasses not only the delivery of documents to the court 1n electronic form but their use 1n that form by judges and court staff by the lawyers and other participants in the case their availability to the public as electronic documents and their ultimate archival storage in electronic form In short electronic filing refers to the migration from paper to electronic documents for the operation of the judicial system Experimentation with the creation and use of electronic documents in courts began over a decade ago when Delaware began to handle individual large multi party toxic tort cases in this fashion Successful experiments have been conducted in federal and state courts throughout the country applying the concept to the full range of types of cases Full scale implementation of electronic court document systems is now underway in many federal and state courts One judge in New Mexico uses no paper files for his criminal and juvenile dockets he relies exclusively on the electronic documen
65. iliar with the system advises that it was set up for use in Limited Action cases although the posted materials do not clearly identify that limitation and that over 70 of the court s Limited Actions cases are filed using this system The Court has provided a detailed description of the procedures established for the submission of pleadings the formatting of e mail messages etc Court24 1s a concept sponsored by NetGov described as a fully integrated package including electronic filing and document management services Its most prominent client is the Allegheny County Pennsylvania court system XML the wave of the future XML stands for the Extensible Markup Language a specification for a markup language which is text based and therefore quickly readable by computers under all platforms HTML the markup language used to create this page 1s another example of a markup specification The World Wide Web Consortium released its official WC3 Recommendation 1 0 for XML 1n February 1998 There are now several projects focusing on XML as the basis for the electronic delivery of court documents The Electronic Court Filing Project based at Georgia State University has been actively involved in presenting the benefits of electronic filing to courts in the Southeast The Utah Electronic Law and Commerce Project sponsors an XML Work Group which is working to develop an XML based Document Type Definition for the filing and exchange of legal docu
66. ima County Justice Courts of Arizona allows parties to electronically file complaints and answers in small claims cases through Web based forms Rich Himes of the U S District Court for the District of New Mexico has developed an electronic filing system based on the Extensible Markup Language XML The system serves the same basic function as the court clerk s office The document being filed is digitally signed and sealed in an electronic envelope and delivered over a secure Internet link to the court The system automatically sends an XML confirmation message to the filer upon receipt of the electronic filing All these systems include the basic elements of any electronic filing system Any such system will need to provide a means for transmitting a pleading electronically to the court such as by email or with a Web based form The filing party will also be required to provide proof of identity a digital signature or submission of a user name and password and some kind of electronic caption identifying the case in which the pleading is being filed Some form of encryption will be required to ensure the security of the transmission The receiving court will verify the identity of the filer and extract both the contents of the pleading and the electronic caption from the electronic filing The court will send an acknowledgement to the filer enter information from the caption into the court s case management system and file the plead
67. ing appropriately An electronic filing system also will provide remote access to electronic case files and to the court s docket Some of those steps may continue to be performed manually as the court transitions to a fully electronic system For example file storage entry of docket information and communications between parties and the court can each be computerized separately and in planned stages For example a court that accepts electronic pleadings from parties may choose to print out such pleadings for storage in physical files The court also may employ both electronic and paper based subsystems contemporaneously for performing particular functions such as by providing parties with the option of filing complaints either electronically or on paper Existing systems exhibit a variety of approaches and demonstrate that each court can exercise control over the path that it takes to mitigate any disruption caused by computerization Courts net E filing 7 29 01 10 33 PM Electronic Filing and Courts The issue of electronic filing is a significant one for the courts in several respects Courts are finding it increasingly necessary to address electronic filing of both outgoing and incoming files Outgoing files The Internet 1s a revolutionary means of distributing information and documents Even before internet use became widespread among attorneys both West Publishing and Lexis Nexis were involved in making judicial opinions availa
68. isted above Filing Proposed Documents If the document you wish to file requires leave of court such as an amended complaint or a document to be filed out of time the proposed document shall be attached as an exhibit to the motion If your motion is granted the order will direct you to electronically file your document with the court Filing Other Types of Documents To file a document other than a motion or application make the appropriate selection from the File A Document menu The screens that follow will be very similar to those described above for filing a motion CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 30 Missouri Western District Court E Mail Notification When Documents are Filed Attorneys associated with ECF cases will be automatically notified by e mail and receive the Notice of Electronic Filing when a document is filed in those ECF cases provided they have an Internet e mail address You will be notified of any activity in the cases you requested Maintain your Account You can also set up additional parties to receive notification in cases This might be useful to notify secretaries paralegals or docket clerks of activity taking place in current cases Eo a A Western District of Missouri Netscape Reports Utilities Logout Your Account Miscellaneous Mantan Your Account Legal Research View Your Transaction Lo Verty a Document Change Your PACER Logn Change Client Code Rewew Eilne Histo With the new CM ECF d
69. istrict court release attorneys need to be aware that they will have the ability to change their own password Under the Utilities Menu is a choice entitled Maintain Your Account Since you will be required to have a PACER login and password in addition to your district court password and possibly a bankruptcy password you will now be able to change your password to one that can be easily remembered CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 31 Missouri Western District Court After clicking on Maintain Your Account you will see the following screen E CM ECF Western District of Missouri Netscape Query Reports Utilities Logout Midate name 7 Generation Title Logout Reports Utilities Civil Query More User Information for guestATY Login guestarr Last login 04 30 2001 15 27 Password 5 Current login 04 30 2001 15 27 Prid 17356 Create date 04 50 2001 Registered Y Update date 04 50 2001 Groups Attorney Cea CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 32 Missouri Western District Court If you delete the in the password area you can then type in the new password When you are finished making changes click on Return to Account screen You must click on Submit to make any changes take effect If you change your password the Clerk s Office will not be able to tell you what the change is Our system shows as the password just as you see from your In addition there 1s a new
70. ith a Web based form The filing party will also be required to provide proof of identity a digital signature or submission of a user name and password and some kind of electronic caption identifying the case in which the pleading is being filed Some form of encryption will be required to ensure the security of the transmission The receiving court will verify the identity of the filer and extract both the contents of the pleading and the electronic caption from the electronic filing The court will send an acknowledgement to the filer enter information from the caption into the court s case management system and file the pleading appropriately An electronic filing system also will provide remote access to electronic case files and to the court s docket Some of those steps may continue to be performed manually as the court transitions to a fully electronic system For example file storage entry of docket information and communications between parties and the court can each be computerized separately and in planned stages For example a court that accepts electronic pleadings from parties may choose to print out such pleadings for storage in physical files The court also may employ both electronic and paper based subsystems contemporaneously for performing particular functions such as by providing parties with the option of filing complaints either electronically Or on paper Existing systems exhibit a variety of approaches and demonstrate
71. le document type names and other information unique to the court required for electronic filing The Court Filing Work Group is considering that issue and may incorporate a procedure for that process in a 1 x release of the Proposed Standard Document type 1s an optional element in the DTD However some courts may require its inclusion Also note that a filing may contain multiple document types Any rules of the court that restrict valid combinations of document types will not be enforced automatically by the DTD court staff will have to monitor filings to ensure compliance The standard does attempt to identify common meanings for the term Lead document disposition The term defines the data elements a court will use to inform a filer of the status of the filed document transmission error acknowledged received accepted partial deferred and rejected The intended use of these terms is defined in section 2 2 2 of the specification The Proposed Standard uses generic terms to refer to various participants in the court process rather than containing extensive lists of such participants Thus the Proposed Standard includes data elements for actor and role rather than plaintiff s attorney defense attorney prosecutor public defender etc It will be the obligation of service providers creating interfaces for court filers to use jurisdiction specific terms for role 6 The process being followed by the Joint Techn
72. le in nine federal courts The project began in 1996 and enables participating attorneys to submit pleadings and docket entries in PDF Adobe format directly to the court Instant read only access to the docket and all corresponding documents is available to those with PACER Public Access to Court Electronic Records accounts Court administrators are also developing standards for XML and Legal XML extensible markup language XML is a means by which information is exchanged between different operating systems applications and data bases that are otherwise unable to talk to each other If there were an XML standard defining all of the data needed for electronic filing transactions and all electronic filing systems used that standard then every lawyer and other court user could interact with every court easily The Proposed LegalXML Court Filing Standard 1 0 has been developed to serve that purpose See http www oasis open org cover courtXML html data type Streaming video audio and data from the deposition site will be more common For teleconferencing multimedia presentations and a host of applications video and electronic text are now setting a new standard Video oral appellate argument and witness testimony by video transmission have been initiated in a number of state and federal courts The lawyer s approach to the new technology should embrace these digital improvements and technologies all of which will have a profoun
73. lect the specific existing documents to which the one currently being filed relates CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 24 Missouri Western District Court Western District of Missouri System Netscape Query Reports utilities Logout 6 01 03004 FJG Julian v Burnett Include Date Docket Text O 04 12 2001 4 MOTION to dismiss case filed by Steven M Thomas on behalf of Morningstar Julian suggestions in opposition due by 4 24 2001 Kollmeyer Jane O 04 12 2001 5 MOTION to strike filed by Steven M Thomas on behalf of Morningstar Julian Related Doc 7 suggestions in opposition due by 4 24 2001 Kollmeyer Jane Modified on 4 12 2001 Kollmeyer Jane 04 12 2001 6 SUGGESTIONS IN SUPPORT to motion to dismiss case filed by Steven M Thomas on behalf of Morningstar Julian Kollmeyer Jane Modified on 4 12 2001 to link suggestions to motion Kollmeyer Jane 04 12 2001 7 SUGGESTIONS IN SUPPORT filed by Steven M Thomas on behalf of Morningstar Julian Kollmeyer Jane Modified on 4 12 2001 to create link K ollmeyer Jane Click on the box to the left of each pre existing document to which the current document relates Scroll down and click on The next screen will automatically reflect the response suggestions in opposition deadline Em Western District of Missouri System Netscape me My Reports Utilities Logout 6 01 03004 FJG Julian v Burnett Response Suggestions in Opposition Deadline
74. mation posted by the working groups provide some very detailed technical standards and specifications but do little to answer these questions Even the Winters article and the Goldfarb instant sketch do not provide much help We have posted a Quick Look at the PAD Dataset to show the actual use of XML by a small open source application called Portable Application Description PAD developed by the Association of Shareware http www courts net efiling htm Page 3 of 6 Courts net E filing 7 29 01 10 33 PM Professionals This interface is used by software authors to provide basic reference information about their programs The free programs offered by ASP include PADGen used to create the XML files and PAD Extractor used to sniff out and display the information contained within the markups The site also offers a web form page to permit a user to enter the necessary information and generate an XML file online ASP s programs provide a practical example of XML in use and thus help to demonstrate its promise for future use in court filings Articles and publications See the study published by the Center for Technology in Government at the State University of New York at Albany on The World Wide Web as a Universal Interface to Government Services Brad Hillis of the Washington State Courts has posted a web published monograph and a couple of preview articles See e Internet Experiments in Electronic Court Filing e Electronic Court Filing
75. ments The U S District Court for the District of New Mexico has announced a variation on XML known as the XCI or the extensible markup language court interface offered as a way to permit lawyers and courts to communicate with each other using an open standards software interface The New Mexico court has posted a page called XML Court Interface Demonstration Software Despite the name this document is nothing more than a description of what XML is and what the developers hope to achieve using XML in connection with court filings The demonstration software is said to be under development but no prototypes are offered A group called Legal XML has undertaken some activities in this area and has published the latest in a series of proposed standards Another group is the Joint Technology Committee of the Conference of State Court Administrators COSCA and the National Association of Court Managers NACM working under the name Court XML to develop a standard for XML use in the courts e XML and Electronic Filing Issues for Courts by Roger Winters at the Legal XML site is a good overview article on this subject e Foraquick introduction to XML by Charles F Goldfarb the inventor of the original Standard Generalized Markup Language SGML see XML in an Instant A Non geeky Introduction What does XML look like and do in practice and what benefits can it provide for court filing projects The Georgia New Mexico and Utah sites and the infor
76. n Hotel Crowne Plaza 1113 6th Avenue Seattle WA 98101 3048 Phone 206 464 1980 Fax 206 340 1617 Rates 116 00 single 136 double plus 15 6 tax ie querer t Ea Ltrs Li IIS z Ni Mud Ma Ts m a bn Eu rg Boss Lu t Participants must make hotel reservations by March 19 2001 to guarantee the group rate Use our secure form to register online or via mail fax or email For more information please contact the Institute for Court Management by email at icmregistrar ncsc dni us call us toll free at 800 616 6160 E ICM HOME National Programs Home Partnerships CMP Course Calendar Course Catalog Distance Learning Center Court Executive Development Program You are here National Center for State Courts gt National Programs gt Course Calendar gt Electronic Filing Document Imaging a erg Ax es D fe EM uH A at 24 CLE i AN EX n ne TC A PL WIE ATA ash http www ncsc dni us ICM calendar electronic filing 0104 html Copyright 2000 National Center for State Courts Institute for Court Management WWW ncsc dni us icm Page 3 of 3 Conference of State Court Administrators National Association for Court Management Joint Technology Committee Proposed LegalXML Court Filing Standard 1 0 General Explanation and Request for Comments This document accompanies the Proposed LegalXML Court Filing Standard 1 0 The
77. n the proper format refer to Technical Notes in Appendix I for known problems How to View a PDF File o Start the Adobe Acrobat Exchange program e Go to the File menu and choose Open o Click on the location and file name of the document to be viewed e If the designated location is correct and the file is in PDF format Adobe Acrobat Exchange loads the file and displays it on the screen o If the displayed document is larger than the screen or consists of multiple pages use the scroll bars to move through the document o Click on the View menu for other options for viewing the displayed document Choose the option that is most appropriate for the document How to Convert Documents to PDF Format Conversion of any word processing document to PDF Format is required before submission to the court s electronic filing system The conversion process is relatively simple and can be accomplished in one of two ways depending on the word processing program you are using CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 4 Missouri Western District Court For WordPerfect Version 6 1 7 and 8 Open the document to be converted Select the Print option and in the dialog box select the option to change the selected printer A drop down menu with a list of printer choices is displayed Select Adobe PDF Writer Print the file The file should not actually print out instead the option to save the file as a PDF format file appears Nam
78. ncludes docket access to courts in the Chicago area The Pacer Service Center serves as the federal Judiciary s centralized registration billing and technical support center for electronic access to federal court records VeriLaw based in Eastern Pennsylvania is involved in several prototype docket and document access projects including the MDL 1203 project described above The Federal courts have begun an ambitious project aimed at bringing all of the Federal courts fully online within four years The Electronic Case Files project which currently involves nine courts is described in New Online Access to Federal Courts posted at the Law Library Resource Exchange site Links to the nine ECF sites are included The Circuit Courts for the State of Wisconsin are participating in the Circuit Court Automation Program CCAP providing online access to docket information copies of cases judgments and attorney schedules The Law Library Resource Exchange has published Mary Lynn Wagner s compiled listing and links to Federal Court Records on the Web Legal Dockets Online provides links to all known sites offering access to dockets case lookup and electronic filing including all PACER sites http www courts net efiling htm Page 5 of 6 Courts net E filing Home 1997 2001 yclipse technologies First posted November 15 1997 This page last updated Sat Jun 2 06 50 08 2001 7 29 01 10 33 PM Electronic Filing Past P
79. nd facilities The pleadings must be kept in an organized fashion and of course they take up a tremendous amount of room Over the course of the last few years we have seen the following http www courts net efiling htm Page 1 of 6 Courts net E filing 7 29 01 10 33 PM e Primarily due to space considerations most courts now restrict the filing of discovery materials particularly deposition transcripts The attorneys involved in the case are required to keep the originals of discovery materials and they are to be filed with the court only when an issue arises in the course of pretrial motion practice or when they are used at trial e Inthe early 1980s the filing system broke down entirely in the Wayne County Circuit Court serving Detroit Michigan Pleadings filed with the court were simply stacked in boxes and eventually stored in a warehouse without any effort to get them to the court files or to keep them in any organized fashion Electronic filing and storage of pleadings briefs and discovery items holds the promise of alleviating many of these problems although surely bringing new and different problems in their place So far only a few courts have experimented with the use of e mail and the filing of electronic versions of documents with the courts and some have abandoned the project See Brad Hillis s Critique of Existing Electronic Court Filing Projects for a listing of these projects Perhaps the most ambitious use of elec
80. ne 2 2 4 SpecialHandling T Request for human intervention Court may Appendix B Element Name Purpose Attribute Name Comment Document Reference Required Court Defined Empty Required Court Defined DTD Defined dene 0 l sss w MINA NIMM iling Em eue LER 1 HE document DateTimeSubmitted T Date and time a pr nen ir IE submitted 221 DocumentDescription T T Selfexplanatory o o o OJ o y y a ss oo 5 AGE ee 221 Documentlype T Courtspecifiedtitle DocumentCode T Courtdefinedeventcode _ 221 Administrativelaw TfPPlaceholder l ss 221 Appeals TfPPlaceholder s y 221 Bankruptey TfPPlaceholder y y 2 2 1 Civil T Place holder 221 Criminal TfPlaceholder l 221 pomesticRelaios TPlaehoder FS 221 Wuvenile TfPlaceholder J 221 probae jTPlcehoder l 221 gQmalClams Tle holder J l y AAA tt __ Sane cae The document ID Tia Sue sodes MimTyp T ContentEncoding T href t oo document saree H into parts Appendix B Element Name Purpose Attribute Name Comment a O mm Amr M be nested we ATA
81. ng to an Address All are textual Only one of these attributes Type is required The other two Status and StatusDate are optional and if not present are treated as if they did not exist 1 e there is no default value Other examples of elements with child elements containing only text are identified by Appendix A FPCDATA lt ELEMENT AddressLine PCDATA gt lt ELEMENT AddressCity PCDATA gt lt ELEMENT AddressCounty PCDATA gt lt ELEMENT AddressState PCDATA gt lt ELEMENT AddressPostalCode PCDATA gt This is an example of an empty element containing all content in its two attributes lt ELEMENT RoleWith EMPTY gt lt ATTLIST RoleWith ActorID IDREF IMPLIED gt lt ATTLIST RoleWith MatterID IDREF IMPLIED gt The two attribute content definitions IDREF are tokens that identify each of these attributes as a reference to an element elsewhere in this XML document that contains a token ID attribute In this case the ActorID will refer to the Actor element having its ID attribute equal to the value of the ActorID attribute An attribute of the element FilingInformation is another example of a token attribute lt ATTLIST FilingInformation ID ID REQUIRED gt This token attribute allows references to be included in other elements by including in those elements an attribute defined as a token IDREF An attribute of the element LegalEnvelope is an example of a text type with a default v
82. nsmitted the tags by which they will be identified whether the element is required or not what type of data can be included in the field whether the attributes of a field have been defined and if so what they are The DTD serves as the agreed upon basis by which this data will be exchanged among automated systems DTDs are highly stylized documents designed to be processed by computers and used by the computers to understand and process the information being submitted under the terms of the DTD The DTD is imbedded in a specification which also sets forth in text the understandings underlying the technical DTD and the rules for using it XML is supported by commercial and public domain software products for creating and parsing documents developed to conform to the standards promulgated by the W3C 3 Why XML is important for the legal profession and for electronic filing in particular XML provides an opportunity for persons and entities within the legal system to exchange information among different systems and data bases With XML and standards defining how it is to be used it is possible for courts law firms prosecutors offices police departments and state legislatures to keep their current specialized systems and nonetheless send data back and forth between their systems XML allows for the treatment of text within a document as data for many purposes including entry into a data base and searching for key words or key piec
83. nt to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 Every pleading motion and other paper except list schedules statements or amendments thereto shall be signed by at least one attorney of record or if the party 1s not represented by an attorney all papers shall be signed by the party An attorney participant password issued by the court combined with the user s identification serves as and constitutes the attorney participant signature 40 Revision Date May 2001 Therefore an attorney participant must protect and secure the password issued by the court If there is any reason to suspect the password has been compromised in any way it is the duty and responsibility of the attorney participant to immediately notify the court This should include the resignation or reassignment of the person with authority to use the password The attorney participant should change the password immediately 4 hereby authorize the Court to make charge upon the credit card I have provided for any applicable fees required in conjunction with filings I make I understand that it is my responsibility to provide the court with any changes to my credit card information and failure to do so may result in temporary loss of my login to the System 5 An attorney participant registration will constitute a waiver in law of conventional service of documents the attorney participant agrees to accept service of notice on behalf of the client of the electronic filing by hand
84. nt to view the Notice of Electronic Filing click on the gray dot next to the document number You may print out the document by clicking Print on the Netscape Toolbar To return to the docket sheet click on Back CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 35 Missouri Western District Court You may print out the docket sheet by clicking Print on the Netscape Toolbar Displaying Other Reports To view a report other than a docket sheet make the appropriate selection from the Reports Menu The screens that follow are very similar to those described above for viewing a docket sheet CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 36 Missouri Western District Court Known Problems and Troubleshooting Known Problems Converting documents to PDF If WordPerfect 5 1 or 7 0 1s used to write the document and the document is more than three pages Adobe Acrobat will not convert all pages to the PDF format The converted document will have missing pages Use Adobe Exchange to ensure the integrity of the converted PDF document Cannot login to the LIVE SYSTEM A session can only be established using Netscape Navigator 4 5 4 7 or 4 76 ECF is not consistently compatible with Internet Explorer If you are using Netscape Navigator 4 5 4 7 or 4 76 and your password and login have both been correctly typed and you still cannot login to the system please call the Court s Help Desk at 1 800 466 9302 To ensure the documents transmitted have a
85. o the ELECTRONIC CASE FILES CM ECE Leading the way in Electronic Case Filing User s Manual Western District of Missouri Revised May 2001 Table of Contents Gcr iar Os l Inttoduc Of ra cast AA P E PE A A E E A A E A T l PS GS A E loa l Capabiliies ol Sisters uo l FRE GUC meS ene N A 2 Hardware and Software Requirements oooooccnoncnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnninnns 2 How tO Re ister LOPACCESS tec ie e REI ERR E REP a 3 SO A idees ht ufo Ne RR Re Saure etas Lose ete oeste toten oue Edo A cmi AN 4 Setting Up the Acrobat PDE Reader nodi des rore Peto teet eren tih enda oe ose ore minm idees dais gegen esee 4 Portable DocumentPormabtt PAD EO e Mesisviusstimi tet ode ASAS E 4 ow ito Vaew a FDE Pile T i oca 4 How to Convert Documents to PDE POfImAL cese oct ainia aid 4 Doro o to deed O duin eei 0 eO Ec esu EeU M E M rH NUR 5 F r Micros tt Word 95 OF laler recio reido Seca oe dn Uns cu eue 5 Any other word processing program a 6 ino rr rn TE TS 6 IB M eise Tu T e IC ec 6 Conventions Usedan this Manual ds 6 Documents Fled ln Bro T 7 Viewing Transaction Lo 248 oasis toi 7 Users Mamas esci eue alas 7 AE PB GIN coe MC Nc 8 Howto ACCESS THES iMac oa 8 LOS A este etna ca sans eat wc ls Pe tei enced a ere ee see oune 9 Civil BEVehtsDeabulfe aitor aiii cesos 11 Correcto a mistakes cordones dll tica 11 Signatures AAV ILS Ol El VICO rociar ori n
86. ogout 6 01 03004 FJG Julian v Burnett Docket Text Final Text Amended MOTION to dismiss case for lack of jurisdiction filed by Ima guestATY on behalf of Karen Burnett suggestions in opposition due by 4 30 2001 guestATY Ima WARNING Clicking the next button on this screen files your document with the court Please make sure your filing is correct as you will have no further opportunity to modify it if you continue To modify a previous screen click on Back at the top of the Netscape screen to find the screen to be modified When you arrive at the Final Approval screen if the entry is Moa correct scroll down and click on To abort the entry click on Civil to restart CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 28 Missouri Western District Court After final approval is given the next screen displays the official filing receipt Reports Utilities Logout Notice of Electronic Filing Case Name Case Number 2 01 03004 FJG Document Number 1 Docket Text MOTION to dismiss case for lack of jurisdiction filed by Karen Burnett suggestions in opposition due by 5 29 2001 Cooper Tammie The following document s are associated with this transaction Document description Main Document Original filename J dc compalint pdf Electronic document Stamp STAMP MOWDsStamp ID 875559776 Date 5 15 2001 File Number 5290 0 91 b4f060e4200519e468445dc 7b2bfdaffcf8bc 597642526 74ccO2dEc95 11468 3f86910 7285ed
87. ological change how can legal professionals possibly hope to contribute meaningfully to the technical aspects of electronic filing standards and ensure that such standards reflect the real life needs of the legal profession How can we expect computer professionals to sufficiently grasp the arcane intricacies of legal practice to develop technological standards that meet our needs Discussions on the Legal XML mailing lists have shown an incredible willingness and ability for computer professionals and legal professionals to communicate with each other often across Significant gaps in knowledge and experience Furthermore those attorneys with specialized technical knowledge and those computer professionals with particular expertise in developing computer systems for the legal profession can play a special role in bridging the gap By collectively developing adopting and promulgating such standards we in the legal profession have the opportunity to clearly express the requirements that any electronic filing system must satisfy The backing of the legal profession behind such standards will provide an impetus to software vendors to develop software that complies with such standards and that as a result satisfies the expressed needs of the legal profession This should result in higher quality products that are easier to use and contain fewer unnecessary or poorly designed features Furthermore adoption of standards for intercommunication between le
88. ology Committee for development and approval of this XML standard The COSCA NACM Joint Technology Committee Subcommittee on Electronic Filing identified the need for a standard for the use of XML to support electronic filing applications being developed by courts and commercial service providers It decided to work through a non profit organization called LegalXML www LEGALXML ORG which brings together interested technical and non technical persons to develop standards for the application of XML within the legal community LegalXML created a Court Filing Work Group to develop the standard LegalXML presented its work product to the COSCA NACM Joint Technology Committee for approval All members of the Court Filing Work Group volunteered their time to develop the standard Much of the discussion occurred on an E mail list server maintained by LegalXML The Work Group held three face to face meetings in Albuquerque Phoenix and Atlanta to move the work forward The first meeting was held in early November 1999 and the third in mid March 2000 The authors of the DTD and specification are Marty Halvorson New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts and Rich Himes United States District Court for the District of New Mexico Substantial contributions were made by SCT Global Government Solutions Inc and West Group The leadership of LegalXML reviewed the final draft of the standard for conflicts and horizontal inconsistencies with other LegalXML
89. otices Address change notice Attorney appearance Designation of neutral Judgment satisfaction Lis Pendens Notice of Magistrate assignment returned Notice of endorsement Notice of filing bankruptcy Notice of publication Proposed bill of costs Settlement notice Statement of corporate interest Suggestions of death CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 39 Other Filings continued Other Documents Acknowledgement Affidavit Declaration Appeal to District Court Judge Civil Cover Sheet Consent to proceed before magistrate Memorandum Notice of filing Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus Petition for Writ of Mandamus Petition for mental status Proposed scheduling order Receipt for settlement proceeds Release Sealed document Statement of facts Status Report Stipulation Stipulation of dismissal Supplement Trial Documents Designation Jury demand Proposed exhibit list Proposed findings of fact Proposed jury instructions Proposed voir dire Proposed witness list Trial brief Social Security Events Defendants Social Security brief Plaintiffs Social Security brief Plaintiffs Social Security reply brief Social Security Transcript Remark Social Security notice Submission of administrative record Supplemental Social Security transcript Social Security Complaint Social Security Answer Missouri Western District Court United States District and Bankruptcy Courts Western District of Missouri Case Management Elect
90. paNumbr TT T Banumber 24 Veadmited T gefexgantory 0 S 24 pastus T kelfexplanatoy____ ______ 0 0 aa m Dae 1 T T S08600formt J l 5 5 patere T T Date ana time din ow oe may define SEMEN ia active etc Court nay den eB status ISO 8601 oo e A define ie ete _ _ _ a EIA MM iii B may define Status aU d active etc Court may pens pues f Date of status ISO 8601 E 24 Fee Ha TO T S ae a 4 FullName Full name of entity or person fal TEE Kali on T Collections of actors Em T May be referred to may define define Appendix B B DE SatusDateQualifier tT SC 24 GroupName T IT NNameofarop of group 2 4 GroupRelationship Relationship between his clue another group 24 __GroupLovation i T Lesetienefareup 24 pem T Locations not as be referred to pesonoronies eser TN T odertee Cour ma i ae 24 LocaionTet T gendedeimedtet _____ TO may define E a o WW Court may define Name T Person entity or thing T T May be referred to define NameAlias Alias of person entity MatchWith TI T ID of real name or thing Type T T Type of name Court may define Number T JA number a ON gt of number Court may define Req
91. porate the ability to facilitate pdf filing with he transcript With Adobe Acrobat Capture 3 0 one can convert scanned pages to searchable Adobe PDF files that anyone with the free Acrobat Reader can view navigate and print By translating the document into PDF format any computer user with any Era i ode A pal AFA PITE i isle sedia rd med Dae al Earum amay eT 18 QUEEN PRdpes A ed pega LUE eor le rmm mri aay 800 000 Peje lo Hae Vo de Feoera Pues d Cal Procedue avi Loca Faso B che run b dal mi Eme id ko cra E dera Rig rad Cr ee ee atte Bui program or operating system can download Acrobat Reader and read the deposition transcript Adobe touts its system as excellent for the courtroom and trial work because scanned images are identical to the originals See http www adobe com 80 epaper spotlights hollandhart pdfs hollandhart pdf PDF permits scanned in exhibits to be read and downloaded The Exhibits can be scanned and then saved or converted to other formats JPEG or PICT Scanning and e transcript software should seriously be considered by all court reporting firms Kinko s and other copy service document firms are now providing FTP sites which are essentially hard drives or storage spaces in cyberspace to permit easy transfer of documents It will be standard practice for depositions with many exhibits to be transcribed electronically with all the exhibits scanned
92. pt to define the electronic format for legal documents rather it defines the data to be sent with the document to enable a court to identify the document and its sender and to create the docket entry 1n the court s case management information system CMIS for the filed document The standard also includes all data elements needed by a court to initiate a new case in its CMIS 1f the document filed initiates a new case e g it is a civil complaint or petition or a criminal information or indictment The COSCA NACM Joint Technology Committee 1s disseminating this Proposed Standard broadly throughout the courts community for review and comment In particular we want to know whether we have included all data elements required by any court Comments will be accepted until November 1 2000 Comments should be sent to the COSCA NACM Joint Technology Committee in care of Dale Kasparek National Center for State Courts 200 Newport Avenue Williamsburg VA 23185 or dkasparek ncsc dni us 25 What XML is XML stands for Extensible Markup Language It is a means by which information is exchanged between different operating systems applications and data bases XML is not an operating system or a software application It is a way of defining data for transmission between systems and applications It provides a means for sending information between computer systems using different hardware and software By defining the data elements to be transmitted and the
93. r with a copy of the Notice of Electronic Filing until the judge assigned to the case orders otherwise Some judges have entered orders directing that this is no longer necessary Please check with the court for current requirements For a complete listing of the Judges who do not require paper copies see our home page Each screen has the following two buttons Clear clears all characters entered in that particular box o _Next accepts the entry just made and displays the next entry screen 1f any Correcting a mistake X gt 3 Zt 2 qu d wat Back Forward Reload Home Search Netscape Print Security Stop Use the Pack button on the Netscape toolbar to go back and correct an entry made on a previous screen However once the document is transmitted to the court only the court can make changes or corrections CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 11 Missouri Western District Court Signatures Affidavits of Service Documents which must contain original signatures or which require either verification or an unsworn declaration under any rule or statue shall be filed electronically with originally executed copies maintained by the filer The pleadings or other document electronically filed shall indicate a signature e g s Jane Doe In the case of a stipulation or other document to be signed by two or more persons the following procedure should be used a The filing party or attorney shall initially con
94. resent and Future 7 29 01 9 49 PM WEB SEARCH SEARCH lexisONE Site Lm lexisON cu ness OOOO HOME LEGAL FORMS NEWS LEGAL INTERNET CLIENT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE LIFESTYLE EL El eMARKETPLACE LexisNexis l BOOKSTORE RESEARCH GUIDE DEVELOPMENT DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT q PRACTICE MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY CORNER POST A JOB Electronic Court Filing Past Present and Future c A Aa Seen sae by Robert Plotki PRACTICE MANAGEMENT LIBRARY I ONE a PRACTICE MANAGEMENT TOOLS Despite the growing use of computers in the legal profession authoring and filing legal THE Looe COMMUNITY pleadings remains a labor intensive process that has yet to fully benefit from the potential for automation offered by recent advances in computer technology Efforts are underway however to computerize virtually every aspect of court filing and case management paper based filing systems with electronic filing systems that allow pleadings to be filed over ELEGIMOS AUEANLE IMEETS the Internet Some systems also allow parties to access their case files and the court s docket FORMS over the Internet These early systems although rudimentary are already facilitating lexts com Y PAT AS YOU GO interactions with the courts and are allowing attorneys and courts to recognize significant cost savings The electronic filing systems of tomorrow will further automate the filing process and integrate computer systems for filing case management docketing stora
95. rinter upkeep and repairs photocopying postage courier services and document storage and retrieval can be extremely burdensome for parties attorneys and courts Although the idea of increasing efficiency by generating and filing documents electronically is not a new one the advent of the World Web Wide has significantly boosted interest in electronic filing The technological standards underlying the Web and the infrastructure that has been developed to support such standards provide a convenient relatively inexpensive and increasingly ubiquitous means for electronic communication that provides a natural foundation for electronic filing systems Electronic filing systems What capabilities will tomorrow s electronic filing systems provide The features of several existing electronic filing systems provide an inkling of what to expect in the future For example since 1997 the U S District Court for the Northern District of California has required that all complaints and pleadings in securities class actions be filed with the Securities Class Action Clearinghouse an electronic filing system accessible over the Internet and maintained by the Stanford University Law School The full text of more than 2 000 complaints briefs orders and other filings is now searchable online through the Clearinghouse The U S District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania uses the MDL 1203 Web based Docket and Document Delivery System to consolida
96. ronic Case Files Attorney Participant Registration Form LIVE SYSTEM This form shall be used to register for an account on the Court s Case Management Electronic Case Files CM ECF system Registered attorneys and other participants will have privileges both to electronically submit documents and to view and retrieve electronic docket sheets and documents for all cases assigned to the CM ECE system The following information is required for registration First Middle Last Name Last four digits of Social Security Number Attorney Bar State Firm Name Firm Address Voice Phone Number FAX Phone Number Internet E Mail Address Please specify which court you are registering in or both ____ District Bankruptcy By submitting this registration form the undersigned agrees to abide by the following rules 1 This system is for use only in cases permitted by the U S Courts for the Western District of Missouri It may be used to file and view electronic documents docket sheets and notices 2 Atthis time the requirements for filing viewing and retrieving case documents are a personal computer 486 minimum running a standard platform such as Windows Windows 95 or Macintosh an Internet provider using Point to Point Protocol PPP Netscape Navigator software version 4 5 4 7 or 4 76 and Adobe Acrobat software version 3 0 or 4 0 to convert documents from a word processor format to a portable document format PDF 3 Pursua
97. rrived in their entirety it 1s important to read the document after it 1s received by the court This can be done by viewing the docket sheet for the case and selecting the transmitted document The number of the transmitted document appears on your electronic filing receipt Trouble shooting Hints If your login or password is not accepted please ensure that they are typed correctly The logins and passwords are case sensitive Technical Failures The Clerk shall deem the WDMO Public Web site to be subject to a technical failure on a given day if the Site is unable to accept filings continuously or intermittently over the course of any period of time greater than one hour after 12 00 noon that day in which case filings due that day which were not filed due solely to such technical failures shall become due the next business day Such delayed filings shall be rejected unless accompanied by a declaration or affidavit attesting to the filing person s failed attempts to file electronically at least two times after 12 00 p m separated by at least one hour on each day of delay due to such technical failure If you have questions about ECF please call our Help Desk at 1 800 466 9302 CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 37 Missouri Western District Court CM ECF Document Type Tables for Attorneys Initial Pleadings amp Service Motions continued Complaints and Other Initiating Documents Motion for extension of time to complete discovery Amen
98. s to subject matter that is contributed to and included in proposed standards The organization s rules for developing proposed standards borrow from and are similar to the rules used by the World Wide Web Consortium W3C and the Internet Engineering Task Force IETF to develop standards such as HTML for the Internet Legal XML has a number of workgroups that are developing proposed standards in areas such as court filing case law public law and private law The organization published its first Proposed Standards for electronic filing in March of this year and plans on releasing additional Proposed Standards later this year Legal XML workgroups communicate primarily by email Several face to face meetings however have been held and several more are planned for the near future Traffic on the mailing lists has picked up significantly in recent months and many lively debates have ensued It is particularly refreshing to see communication among practitioners from a wide variety of jurisdictions and areas of practice as well as communication between legal professionals and computer professionals Although communication across these broad gaps can be difficult it is essential if the organization s efforts are to succeed Challenges Despite the strides that have been made thus far to develop national standards for electronic filing many challenges lie ahead For example there is an ever present tension between the efficiencies created
99. search Forms News Legal Internet Guide Client Development Professional Development Practice Management Lifestyle eMarketplace LexisNexis Bookstore Wireless The Loop m Community Back to Top Questions Comments Something you d like to see We value your opinions about exisONE and rely on them to please you Don t let that comment go email it to us Copyright 2001 LEXIS NEXIS Group All rights reserved Privacy Terms and Conditions http www lexisone com practicemanagement pmlibrary electroniccourtfiling html Page 4 of 4 LLRX New Online Access to Federal Courts 7 29 01 10 41 PM D Thi Europe s leading legal IT conference amp exhibition c Legal e X Europe com r register free Front Page 1 Bookstore Archives About LLRX l Subscribe Comments SEARCH Ea Sign up Y for our mailing list G Extras New Online Access to Federal Courts By Lynn Peterson Lynn Peterson is president of PFC Information Services Inc a public records research firm located in Oakland California Lynn has been quoted on public records research in a variety of sources including The Wall Street Journal Kiplinger s Personal Finance Magazine and The Information Broker s Handbook PFC Information Services provides public records research for law firms corporations lenders venture capitalists employers the media and other information research firms kc F gt F Pp F B F FF Pp
100. t Submitting a Proposed Order A document that is submitted in pdf format cannot be modified therefore a proposed order must be in a word processing format To accomplish that all proposed orders must be e mailed to the courtroom deputy for the presiding judge in your case in WordPerfect format which is available in most word processing software Please attach your proposed order to an Internet e mail sent to the appropriate courtroom deputy as listed Chief Judge Whipple Yvonne Johnson yvonne johnson mow uscourts gov Judge Gaitan Rhonda Enss rhonda enss mow uscourts gov Judge Smith Eva Will Fees eva will fees mow uscourts gov Judge Fenner Tracy Diefenbach tracy diefenbach 9 mow uscourts gov Judge Laughrey Renea Kanies renea kanies 9 mow uscourts gov Judge Wright Carolyn Morrison carolyn morrison mow uscourts gov Judge Sachs Tenilla Sheehan tenilla sheehan 9 mow uscourts gov Chief Magistrate Maughmer Francine Lavenbarg francine lavenbarg mow uscourts gov Magistrate England Alexandra Martinez alexandra martinez mow uscourts gov Magistrate Knox Jackie Price jackie price mow uscourts gov Magistrate Larsen Sue Anderson sue anderson mow uscourts gov Magistrate Hays JoRita Gicinto jorita gicinto 9 mow uscourts gov Prisoner Pro Se Dana Weinzerl dana weinzerl mow uscourts gov In addition if you have any questions regarding your case you may direct your inquiry via e mail to the appropriate courtroom deputy whose address is l
101. t in adobe pdf format on a disk This is an option always available to you BUT IS MANDATORY AFTER 2 00 P M CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 12 Missouri Western District Court Filing a Motion or Application Select Civil from the bar at the top of the Main Menu Western District of Missouri System Netscape A https 207 41 18 210 cgi bin login pl 134219573364258 L 730 0 1 F r Civil Query Reports Utilities Logout Civil Events Initial Pleadings and Service Social Security Events Complaints and Other Initiating Documents Social Security Documents Service of Process Social Secunty Complaint Answers to Complaints Social Secunty Answer Other Answers Motions amp Related Filings Motions Suggestions Responses Rephes Other Filings ADR Documents Appeal Documents Discovery Documents Notices Other Documents Trial Documents agp NEN sure ER croup reor won Click on Motions then click Motions and Related Filings Western District of Missouri System Netscape https 7207 41 18 210 cqi bin login pl 1 3421 9573364258 L_7390_0 1 Query Reports Utilities Logout Motion for appointment of counsel Motion for approval of settlement Motion for attorney fees Motion for certification of appealability Motion for class certification Motion for consent judgment deb ista AF o Select the type of Motion CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 13 Missouri Western District Court Use
102. te information about pending fen phen litigation The system s Web site provides access to docket entries for every filing made in http www lexisone com practicemanagement pmlibrary electroniccourtfiling html Page of 4 Electronic Filing Past Present and Future 7 29 01 9 49 PM MDL 1203 the text of all documents filed by the Court and the Special Master and the text of all attorney filed documents that relate to 100 or more individual MDL 1203 actions The Washtenaw County Trial Court in Michigan allows attorneys to file briefs in the civil division by sending the brief as an email attachment to a specified email address The Pima County Justice Courts of Arizona allows parties to electronically file complaints and answers in small claims cases through Web based forms Rich Himes of the U S District Court for the District of New Mexico has developed an electronic filing system based on the Extensible Markup Language XML The system serves the same basic function as the court clerk s office The document being filed is digitally signed and sealed in an electronic envelope and delivered over a secure Internet link to the court The system automatically sends an XML confirmation message to the filer upon receipt of the electronic filing All these systems include the basic elements of any electronic filing system Any such system will need to provide a means for transmitting a pleading electronically to the court such as by email or w
103. that each court can exercise control over the path that it takes to mitigate any disruption caused by computerization Advantages of electronic filing A fully electronic filing system holds the promise of benefiting all constituents of the justice system parties their attorneys the courts and the public Such a system would benefit parties and their attorneys by reducing the costs of printing copying mailing courier services travel and storage associated with paper documents Parties also would benefit from the ability to electronically access and search through court files and dockets from any location Courts that adopt electronic filing systems will benefit from a drastic reduction in the amount of physical space required to store case files By one conservative estimate paper court documents currently stored using 500 linear feet of shelf storage space about 50 four drawer file cabinets could be stored on a single shelf using currently available and relatively inexpensive hard disk drive technology The amount of time spent by court staff searching for and handling case files would be greatly reduced with an electronic filing system Data entry time would also be drastically reduced because information could be automatically extracted from documents submitted Electronic filing could benefit pro se plaintiffs by reducing overall filing costs and by simplifying the process of filing court documents Courts that adopt electronic filin
104. the scroll bar or your arrow keys to find the type of motion or application to be filed then click over the item to select it To select multiple motions press and hold down the Ctrl key and click on the appropriate forms of relief sought Western District of Missouri System Netscape https 2207 41 18 210 cgi bin login pl 134219573364258 L_7390_0 1 Query Reports Utilities Logout Motion to compel Motion to consolidate cases Motion to continue Motion to dismiss case Motion to dismiss party Motion to disqualify judge Motion to enforce Motion to exclude Query Reports utilities Logout 99 12345 1 99 cv 12345 or 1 99 cv 12345 O Joint filing with other attorney s CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 14 Missouri Western District Court e If the number is entered incorrectly click Hear to re enter If the computer prompts that you entered an invalid case number click El on Pack to re enter When the case number is correct click on _Nex Recheck whether the case number 1s correct If it is incorrect click on P amp to re enter the case number If it is correct scroll down to the bottom part of the screen and click on _Nex If you are filing a joint filing with another attorney in the case click on the box by Joint Filing with other attorneys The next screen prompts you to select or add the name of the party for whom you are filing the motion Click on the name
105. tion for appointment of counsel Motion to set aside judgment Motion for approval of settlement Motion to unseal case Motion for attorney fees Motion to unseal document Motion for certification of appealability Motion to vacate 2255 Motion for class certification Motion to withdraw document Motion for consent judgment Motion to withdraw substitute attorney Motion for default Motion for disbursement distribution Motion for excess pages Motion for extension of time Motion for extension of time to answer amended complaint Motion for extension of time to answer complaint Motion for extension of time to answer third party complaint CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 38 Missouri Western District Court CM ECF Document Type Tables for Attorneys Motions amp Related Filings continued Suggestions Responses Replies Objections to Report and Recommendation Reply suggestions Response to motion Suggestions in opposition Suggestions in support Other Filings ADR Documents Designation of neutral Appeal Documents Appeal number info from USCA Appellants brief Bankruptcy appeal Appellants reply brief Bankruptcy appeal Appellees brief Bankruptcy appeal Delivered to USCA Notice of Appeal to circuit court Notice of Bankruptcy appeal Discovery Documents Certificate of service Certificate of service of initial Rule 26 disclosures Certificate of transmission of deposition Notice of deposition Proposed scheduling order N
106. tration form may be returned to the District Court Clerk s Office 400 East gh Street Room 1510 Kansas City MO 64016 the Jefferson City Office 131 W High Street Jefferson City MO 65101 or the Springfield Office 222 N John Q Hammons Parkway Springfield MO 63806 for processing Only after a user account has been established based on the registration form 1s the participant issued a login and password that will provide access to the system A training version of the system is provided on the Internet at http ecf train mowd uscourts gov for practice purposes It is strongly recommended that participants take advantage of filing documents in the training database before filing a document in the live database Note A different set of logins and passwords are issued for the training and live systems CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 3 Missouri Western District Court Preparation Setting Up the Acrobat PDF Reader In order to view documents filed on the system users must set up Acrobat PDF reader All pleadings are in PDF format When installing this product please review and follow Adobe s directions to utilize an Acrobat PDF reader after installation Portable Document Format PDF Only PDF Portable Document Format documents may be filed with the court using the Court s Electronic Filing System Be sure to view the PDF formatted document before sending it to ensure that it appears in its entirety and i
107. tronic filing 1s the result of an order entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California requiring that all complaints and pleadings in securities class actions be filed with the Securities Class Action Clearinghouse maintained by the Stanford University Law School As a result of this order a large number of pleadings motions and briefs filed in cases involving many perhaps most high tech companies are now available online The U S District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania uses the MDL 1203 Web based Docket and Document Delivery System for the distribution of docket information pleadings and briefs in Fen phen class action litigation pending under the Multi District Litigation rules This was originally a project of Villanova s Center for Information Law and Policy but now is hosted and sponsored by VeriLaw a commercial company run by the CILP s former director Submissions are governed by the court s Pretrial Order 173 which makes filing at the site mandatory for all filings which affect 100 or more claimants and provides that the internet filing is supplementary to and does not take the place of the filing of paper versions of the documents with the court clerk In Michigan electronic filing is provided by the Washtenaw Circuit Court serving Ann Arbor The Washtenaw approach is actually fairly low tech but as a result likely to present few practical problems Attorneys are encouraged to fil
108. ts on his laptop computer on the bench This is an international as well as national trend Court systems in singapore Australia and Europe are actively pursuing the use of electronic records Why is there such interest in these new systems Because electronic court documents are immediately and simultaneously available to all persons who want to use them at the same time from their own offices or homes They are more reliable because their authenticity is more easily established than for paper documents and backup copies are made routinely And electronic record keeping systems should ultimately be less expensive to maintain than paper filing systems But the proliferation of electronic filing applications poses a major potential problem for users the potential for having to communicate with multiple disparate court systems The situation could be analogized to the challenge of communicating by phone throughout your state if every town had a different type of phone system That is where XML Extensible Markup Language comes in XML is a means by which information 1s exchanged between different operating systems applications and data bases that are otherwise unable to talk to each other If there were an XML standard defining all of the data needed for electronic filing transactions and all electronic filing systems used that standard then every lawyer and other court user could interact with every court easily The Proposed LegalXML Co
109. uired Court Defined Empty Q Co o c E Q 20 jum O o O a Required Court Defined DTD Defined Format T Format of number Paymentlnformation Sender payment information Credit or debit or account 24 Credit 0 3 T Creditcard information ______ Appendix B ll i p 24 Debit T Debit card information LLL E 5 en iiem 50 llli account information be jill uui card or account owner 9 pem MM y S LLL ISO 8601 24 Cass jTgasamon j Required Court Defined Empty Required Court Defined DTD Defined Q Co o c E 5 0 jum O o O a E Arp amount SequenceNumber fr Check number Business fr Defaultis No 2 4 Negotiablelnstrument Ni explanatory we IF Kind of instrument bond etc Value T Value of instrument 24 PersonDescipio Tpescripionofpeson 24 Gender T Genderofperson_ Vaue T T Male Female ete 24 Height J T hHeightofperson MeasurementUnit T Defaultisinches 24 Weight T Meightofperson MeasurementUnit T Defaultis pounds 24 EyeColor T Eyecolor of person Value T T Blue Brownete 24 Har Thaircolororlak Vale T T Black Bald ete 24 ScarsMarksTattioos T
110. ument Only available on documents filed after 10 15 99 Scroll down and click on PunRepot o The computer displays the docket sheet pond CMIECEK Western District of Missouri Netscape Query Reports Utilities Logout 0 OLOS 2001 31 MOTION for leave to proceed ifp on behalf of Tricia A Frost Attachments 1 Exhibit Complamt 2 Cral Cover Sheet zree Robert 011142001 22 OED DEE by Judge Scott O Wright granting plamtilf s motion for leave to proceed ifp Related Doc 1 Counsel for plamtiff shall fle the Complaint electromcally within 15 days of the date of this order plamtiff shall be responsible for sence of process in the manner described m FECE 4 Morse Judy 01252001 El COMPLAINT against Kenneth Apfel fled by Daniel A Parmele of Reynolds Parmele amp Gold P C on behalf of Tricia A Frost Eeceipt 000 Parmele Damel o1esy2001 E 4 Summons Issued McCarley Linda s a2 2001 4 RETURN OF SERVICE OF COMPLAINT EXECUTED on ES Atty on 1 20 07 7 or UIS Atiy Gen on PHP and on Com soc Sec Or S S OKC related document s 2 3 fled by Daniel 4 Parmele of Reynolds Parmele amp Gold P C on behalf of Tricia A Frost Dunn Cindy Modified on AA ADAL te correct service date Dunn Cindy You may scroll through by using the up and down arrows on the bar to the right of the list If you want to view an actual document described on the docket sheet click on the document number If you wa
111. urfiles Feuer T pos i Q Was acony of thiatin Mr smith s office as well js M we nae sally Nealey on 3 7 39 i Curent Case Visionary Presentation By synchronizing the transcript to video extremely effective courtroom presentations are possible Bit mapping electronic transcripts should therefore be a sales point for any court reporting service This will enhance the ability to create and display video and will permit multimedia presentations by computer or data on a multimedia presenter Digital projectors can permit a display of RGB video to the screen and in some cases computers will permit a direct video out by RGB or S video A digital projector usually requires that the lights be dimmed or that there be a screen or a wall There are a number of legal issues relating to the use of video and videotape in conjunction with the court reporter s transcript See Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30 b A II Use Or THE INTERNET Rapid expansion of the internet and e mail have changed the way lawyer s practice and how data and depositions are taken delivered and viewed Depositions can be taken over the internet although the video limits of bandwidth remain a problem The audio streaming capability is much easier and works well at standard bandwiths available to consumers The essential idea or set up e g with realtime software is as follows m ME Digital Sharin Cr Device m m LegaLink Court Reporter W
112. urt Filing Standard 1 0 has been developed to serve that purpose It is intended to define all the data needed for electronic filing applications This information packet has been developed to inform courts lawyers other court users and commercial service providers about the standard and to solicit feedback on it in particular whether it contains all of the data you will need to support your present or planned electronic filing system A few general comments about the Proposed Standard The standard deals only with the data to be exchanged not with electronic filing systems themselves It will not define or constrain any court s electronic filing system or define how it should operate Nor does the standard attempt to impose common terminology on all courts For instance the proposed standard calls for the sender to complete a data field document title But it does not attempt to create a standard list of document titles such as Motion of Extension of Time Motion for Summary Judgment etc The developers of the standard understand that courts use different titles for the same matter filers will be responsible for knowing the titles used by a court before filing a document electronically in that court The XML standard will merely make it clear to the sending computer where to put the document title and to the receiving computer where to find the document title in the information sent Finally the Proposed Standard does not attem
113. w JEN B Extra on site com puter with ISP amp spe ecial LiveNote software Remote user with ISP and regular LiveNote software Internet Server Coupled with greater ability to host websites in house the expansion of bandwidth will permit court reporting firms to offer Internet services From my perspective a more efficient economic and immediate need is to take a deposition and when the electronic transcript is completed post the transcript on the internet by e mail to the attorney or to an FTP site file transfer protocol site for reading use and download Current software is available to read depositions with secure e mail delivery An example is e transcript M Eg e transeript Viewer sn Edit View ice AE md Ml mem M 1327013 t As LE 13271 16 17 20 17 Q nd you ve got that s the same periodic tal aera 18 elements that we all learned in high school chemi A in 19 A Yes 121241622 20 Q And calcium is one of those elements correct buying 1 A Yes eios 22 Q Bo the test does not identify ealeium carbonat p 3 a Ho C 204 21 Q So all you got was a reading that said calcium 110715 25 right L H E E K T U 1321610 1 A Yes en Z Q You did not get a reading that said calcium c calc 3 correct 13113 3 20 22 4 A Ho pii 5 Q You extrapolated or you reasoned from the finc cal 6 to ealerium carbonate based on other information tl 131325 7 h 13 that richt
114. ype of attachment o To describe the attachment more fully click in the description box and type in the description Click on If there are additional attachments repeat this sequence for each one After adding all pdf documents for attachments click on CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 20 Missouri Western District Court When attachments and exhibits are in paper format When attachments and exhibits are being filed in paper format and are greater than 10 15 pages a one page pdf document titled Notice of Attachment or Exhibit must be attached using the same steps described above for an exhibit to the pleading in the electronic case file so that there will be a notation on the docket sheet that exhibits are being held in the Clerk s office in paper Please see sample If attachments and exhibits are filed in paper format you must provide an original for the Clerk s office a copy for the Judge and a copy must be served on all parties in the case CM ECF User s Manual May 2001 21 Missouri Western District Court SAMPLE FORMAT IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI DIVISION Plaintiff s VS Case No KA Dor Xor 4 44 44 4 Defendant s NOTICE REGARDING EXHIBIT ATTACHMENT Exhibit _ which is an attachment to is in paper form only and 1s being maintained in the case file in the Clerk s Office Attorney for Plaintiff or Defendant Address Date

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