Apr 21, 2010
Electronic case filing in Maryland?
Based upon some quick research I did, it looks as though there are 14 state court systems actively utilizing electronic case filing, including the District of Columbia. Additionally, almost every federal jurisdiction has electronic case filing through the now well-known PACER CM/ECF system.
I’ve been involved in a number of cases filed in the U.S. District Court here in Maryland, and currently my office has two cases in the District of Columbia. To put it simply, the more electronic filing I do in these jurisdictions, the more frustrated I get at the fact that Maryland does not have such a system. Not only that, it appears as though electronic filing in general civil cases in Maryland is nowhere in sight.
I recall when the District of Columbia implemented electronic case filing for all civil cases back in 2006. I believe I was a law clerk at the time, and one of the partners in my office asked me to attend an open meeting held by the D.C. Superior Court staff to address initial concerns about the system so that I could be the D.C. case filing expert in my office. Whoa. Talk about pressure.
The meeting was packed and I remember being amused at the “older” members of the bar who were extremely concerned about the “electronic” aspect of the system. Some of the lawyers just could not imagine doing 95 percent of their filing online. Other lawyers expressed concerns about the expenses of electronic filing and how to calculate due dates based upon the new electronic system.
Looking back, the concerns expressed that night were reasonable. I imagine similar concerns would be expressed in the event the Maryland General Assembly and/or the Maryland Judiciary make a serious push to implement electronic filing in civil cases in this jurisdiction. However, I’m here to tell you that all the concerns you could come up with are substantially outweighed by the benefits of electronic filing.
The most obvious benefit is that you can do the overwhelming majority of your filing from the comfort of your office. And because opposing counsel and the Court receive notification of the filing and are generally allowed to “retrieve” the filing from the website, there is no need for mailing and/or faxing pleadings.
In the event that you are running up against a deadline, electronic filing also gives you more time to work on the pleading because many of the systems consider a filing to be timely if it is filed at 11:59 p.m. on the date its due. Naturally, we try to avoid such situations, but when they do occur this is an invaluable benefit.
There are a host of other benefits that I won’t bore you with. Let’s just say I’m a big proponent of getting electronic filing to Maryland state courts ASAP.
What are your thoughts?
![[Print]](http://thedailyrecord.com/generationjd/wp-content/plugins/tdc-sociable-toolbar/print.png)
![[Email]](http://thedailyrecord.com/generationjd/wp-content/plugins/tdc-sociable-toolbar/email_2.png)
![[Facebook]](http://thedailyrecord.com/generationjd/wp-content/plugins/tdc-sociable-toolbar/facebook.png)
![[Twitter]](http://thedailyrecord.com/generationjd/wp-content/plugins/tdc-sociable-toolbar/twitter.png)
I’m jumping on this bandwagon the instant it comes to town. Electronic filing is truly a marvel–no more guessing at whether the post office delivered hard copies (and, with the post office potentially limiting services, maybe this would ease their burden a little), instantaneous receipt of opposing counsels’ filings. Not to mention one of my favorite parts–the ability to check the court’s docket to make sure yours matches up exactly.
If we can come up with a system like PACER, electronic filing would work fine. It would be even better if all the circuit courts used the same system.
As someone new to the Fourth Circuit CJA Appellate panel, I was amazed at the PACER system. I also greatly appreciated the fact that there was a Case Manager who, if a filing was done incorrectly, was able to withdraw the filing (which is clearly shown on the docket entries), alert counsel, who could make the necessary corrections. This is a system whose time has come in Maryland.
Totally agree. No reason the Maryland courts can’t get this done.
You said it brother.
We have had electronic case filing in Colorado state courts for quite a few years now. Here is a list of all of the disadvantages of e-filing:
1. A little extra effort to assure that all notices get through spam filters.
2. See # 1.
I’m one of those older members. What happens when the court system goes down, as it will, especially if based on the over-rated, over-marketed Microsoft software? What happens if your own system goes down? Do existing rules and case law impose the responsibility on attorneys to keep their own operating system in good repair? What happens when opposing counsel claims they never got your crucial pleading? How much does it cost to use the PACER/EF system, and how often does one have to pay for their membership?
Reporters would love this, too. No more trying to locate a paper file that may be in transit, with a judge, on the desk of someone who’s on a three-week vacation, in a basement, behind a bookshelf somewhere, or on a cart in a hallway. No more having to rely on cryptic descriptions on the Judiciary Case Search site of what was filed.
As a not so old member of the bar, I am not enamored with prospect of efiling. I used to file a few Federal cases each year before the efiling system was implemented. At first, I was not very concerned with it until the Court mandated efiling instead of making it optional. Now I no longer handle the case if I have to file it in Federal Court. For those of us with relatively small offices, I’m concerned with the expense of efiling. I agree with David B. Allen’s concerns about “what if the [underfunded state] court system goes down?” What if my computer goes down as it did a few weeks ago? It took me two weeks to get a new one in place and everything set up properly. I still can’t get my old macro files to work properly with my new software. I can work around these things with paper filing. I can’t imagine all the difficulties I might have with deadlines due to computer issues. While most judges are reasonable most of the time, there are unfortunately enough exceptions to this rule to make me concerned about efiling.
This responds to Kevin’s and David’s concerns. The e-filing system in Colorado has gone down maybe twice in all the years we’ve had it and then only for a very short period of a day. There are court rules that allow late filings or paper filings when the system crashes or you experience unavoidable technical problems. As for the cost, it is comparable to or cheaper than the cost of a courier. To be sure, it is not glitch-free (no system is — what if your courier gets in a car accident on the way to the clerk’s office or the post office fails to deliver your filing) but the benefits overwhelming outweigh the occasional problems.
Unfortunately, Maryland is a state that is quite resistant to change — regardless of the cost and inefficiency of maintaining the status quo.
This resistance is not limited to technological innovations. Last year, I proposed a “low-tech” way to streamline the state subpoena process by adopting a statewide, pre-stamped subpoena form that lawyers could reproduce as needed, complete and serve without troubling the Clerk’s office to hand stamp thousands of those expensive carbon forms. That small change would have eliminated hundreds of thousands of dollars in state printing costs and wasted human resources. While shifting the printing cost to attorneys/litigants, this would be a welcome change to those of us who must constantly monitor our supplies of stamped subpoenas for various counties — often taking more than we need for fear of running out.
Without questioning the logic of a minor change that would save everyone’s time and money, the Administrative Office of the Courts wrote a one-paragraph letter opposing it and the bill dies in the House Judiciary Committee last year.
There are many similar examples of the judiciary’s reluctance to change. This includes the failure to automate scheduling of hearings and court dates, and the scheduling of wasteful “status conferences” in which some courts do nothing more than hand out a schedule that could be mailed or posted online. See, e.g., Montgomery County. It is time for someone to take a closer look at the system we have and lead a drive to improve upon it.
The Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission has electronic filing of most documents and it works great. You can also go back and look at old claims and reseach a client’s claim history. MD Courts need to move towards a system like this. There was going to be a trial system in Anne Arundel Circuit Court a few years ago but it was cancelled and never rescheduled.
Those of you who are raising [hysterical paranoia] concerns about an electronic case filing system, do what you always do when you can’t figure something out: delegate it to your secretary.
Also, for those concerned about keeping their computers up to speed, one possibility is to keep one or two computers designated at the courthouses for electronic filing. Really, it can be done from any computer with an internet connection. And, if you don’t have the technology in the office, a law student or starving new lawyer could probably do it for a couple of bucks.
See? isolde and I can find common ground!