Judicial Support Blog

E-Filing Audio Podcast April 8-12

judicial — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:47:57 +0000

Below you will find the mini-podcast for the week of April 8-12. Feel free to listen to the podcast anytime.

If you would like to register for the upcoming April 15th or April 26th Florida E-Filing Evolution Coaching and Training programs, click here.

Currently we have just 4 spots available. Register Now.

E-Filing Tip: My Court Filing (Dashboard)

judicial — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:55:37 +0000

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Register For The E-Filing Coaching and Training Program

Available Dates: April 15th, April 26th, May 17th, May 31st

Register your firm here (9 Spots Left for April 15th)

Find out more details here

or call 1-877-277-6521 for more information

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Florida E-Filing Training Series – Part Eight

judicial — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 02:23:07 +0000

That’s interesting because we have 67 courts in the circuit in Florida, and already 55 are up and running and ready to go. These have already been taking 1000’s and 1000’s of pleadings, whether subsequent or initial pleadings. Now 12 of them are still working on the system. Keep in mind that not only will the attorney have to register. The law firm should also do so. It is in the firm’s best interest. There is a reason for that. Keep in mind that it is also important for your firm to create a checklist. A checklist will be important for every single person in your firm that will be responsible for filing.

Why? Because the checklist will be a reminder of things that he or she will need to do in order to get the pleading filed. A check list will include your username, your password, and a list of the acceptable pleadings. It will list what is not acceptable. Page limitations are also important. If you have a recordable document, how do you handle that? How do you handle the summonses, for each particular county? It might be different. If you had a recordable document, how would you handle it? So it is important that everyone from the receptionist, all the way up to the senior clerk or the senior paralegal to the head partner must know how to use the portal. They must have a checklist in place that is prepared either by the administrator or the senior paralegal in your firm. They must all know how to use the portal and should have all things to do and not do when using this system.

Again, if your document is rejected, you don’t just pick up the phone and say to the clerk “My document was rejected, and my attorney is really mad, and I need a remedy for this.” If it is rejected, it is rejected. You have to do what the system is telling you to do when you have to re-submit, so you will want to understand all the different things that go into submitting your document. One of the things that are important, and that we teach you about during the webinar is streamlining the training process and streamlining the process that is involved and getting things done. Keep in mind that April 1st is right around the corner. Things must be up and running in your firm. You don’t want to get to the last day and try to determine whether or not the attorneys are registered or not registered.

Another important thing that we talk about is creating your log, and it is imperative that every law firm has a log of the attorneys that are with them and their username and their password. It is important to have this log because at any point in time an attorney can leave the firm. When that happens, you need to disassociate the attorney from the law firm. So it important to register all of your attorneys and not wait until on the last minute. You also must register your firm, which is most important.

Florida E-Filing Training – Part Seven

judicial — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 02:34:15 +0000

Now, the most important thing that I tell everyone who has taken the webinar and that’s over 1,000 legal professionals, including attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, and receptionists, is that you need to get accustomed to it. Each county will work at a different level. For example, when you go to Miami Dade County, they might do things a certain way, and when you go to Lee County, they might do things a certain way. Whereas if you go to Palm Beach County, they might do things a certain way. For instance, in Miami Dade County, if you need something filed immediately, you stand in line and get it filed immediately. In Lee County if you need something filed immediately, it doesn’t work that way because you have to drop it off and once you drop it off, the clerks will review it and then they’ll do whatever they have to do to get your pleadings filed or issued or your summonses issued or whatever it is that you’re seeking.

The portal is the facilitator, and it’s not going to do anything else. It is going to transfer your documents from your point “a,” your law firm, to point “b,” your clerk’s office. If you select Pensacola, that’s where you’re pleading. It is going to go there. It is going to go to the case management system in the Pensacola court house. Now when you create a boo-boo and your pleadings say Miami Dade County and you select Pensacola, if the Pensacola clerk catches it, she’ll see that the style is incorrect. She won’t know if the style is wrong, or if the paralegal assistant intends to put Pensacola in the Circuit Court of Pensacola or she just selected Pensacola incorrectly. You see no one is at the window. If you were at the window in the clerk’s office, you could just scratch it off, and you just go ahead, and the clerk just processes the paperwork. Here, there is no “scratching off.” If you send something incorrectly, they will reject it, and you will have to correct it. There is no “scratching off.” There is no saying “let me wipe this out” or “let me change it” because the system is happening electronically.

Also, let’s talk about case load. When you are using the case load, Miami Dade is one of the busiest circuits in the whole state of Florida, and if you were to send something through the portal in Monroe, you might get a quicker response. In other words, when you send in your document, you’re not going to get that immediate response that your document was accepted as you would get at a window. When you would take a piece of paper to the window at the clerk’s office, they look at it. They stamp it, and you have a sigh of relief that your document was taken, and now it is gone.

When you send it through the portal, depending on the case load and how many thousands of documents are going through the system, these factors will determine how long it is going to take before the clerk gets back to you. We discuss that at length in the webinar. It is important for you to understand how fast or not fast that the clerk is going to be working for you. Keep in mind that the clerks that we have working here at the clerk’s office are now at the front taking care of the customers, and they will instead be behind the scenes, and they won’t have to speak to the client anymore face-to-face. They’ll actually just be looking at your document and clicking. Either your document is an acceptable document or it’s not. You have to keep that in mind. That’s the reason why if you have someone specifically working with the portal, at least at the beginning until everything is going through correctly, then you are assured that everything is going to be filed instantaneous, and you are not going to have a rejection. A rejection can come one or two days later. Therefore, you need to make sure that it is done right, so your documents aren’t rejected.

One of the nice things about the portal is that two years ago there were only a few actual courts that were up and running. Today I’m going to report to you that out of the 67 courts that are on the circuit in Florida, the majority of them, some 55 counties are already on board and using the system. Which means that only 12 counties are still lingering because they are still converting and one of those counties that are still lingering is Miami Dade County and with Miami Dade County, you can today use the system to file subsequent pleading. When you have a notice, an answer or a memorandum, you can use the system. If you have a new case, you can’t. Our system is not up and running for a new case and will not be up and running for a new case until April 1st.

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Register For The E-Filing Coaching and Training Program – March 15th, 2013

Register your firm here

Find out more details here or call 305-347-3353 for more information

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More Florida E-Filing Resouces

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Mandatory E-Filing In Florida Starts On April 1st 2012

Find out how to get ready

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Florida E-Filing Training – Part Six

judicial — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 01:51:00 +0000

There are many rules for using the e-portal system. It is a system that is very manageable and friendly. You need to know what the rules are, and when you take our webinar, we’re able to give you all the different tools that you are going to need to promote this in your firm and have everyone in your firm ready. Then, when this comes about, they will be up and ready and using the system and you are not lingering and having to figure out what is it and how does it work.

The portal is the facilitator, and it’s not going to do anything else. It is going to transfer your documents from your point “a,” your law firm, to point “b,” your clerk’s office. When you select Pensacola as where you’re pleading, it is going to go there. It is going to go to the case management system in the Pensacola court house. Now there are many rules for using the e-portal system, although it is a system that is very manageable and friendly. You need to know what the rules are, and when you take our webinar, we’re able to give you all the different tools that you are going to need to promote this in your firm and have everyone in your firm ready. Then, when this comes about, they will be up and ready and using the system and you are not lingering and having to figure out what is it and how does it work.

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Register For The E-Filing Coaching and Training Program – March 15th, 2013

Register your firm here

Find out more details here or call 305-347-3353 for more information

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More Florida E-Filing Resouces

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Countdown To Mandatory E-Filing In Florida

Find out how much time is left

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Florida E-Filing Training Series – Part Five

judicial — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:39:36 +0000

Now a lot of firms are interested in how litigants without lawyers are going to be doing this. Those litigants are also going to be doing this and so if you are approached by someone that wants to handle their own case they will also need to register to use the system, and get the authentication to use it. They will also need to send their paperwork in electronically. This is a system that will be for everyone in Florida.

Now, the whole purpose of having an e-portal system is the ability that it is going to have. I like to use the example of a firm in Dade County, and your attorney has been hired by a company that is also in Dade County, but they have a lot of collections that are primarily done in Pensacola. With the e-portal, you don’t have to worry about running packages up to Pensacola or using Fed Ex to send packages up there and making the deadlines for those packages to be delivered. As we know, this can result in packages being misplaced or undeliverable, and you wouldn’t know about it until a couple of days later. Now the nice thing about this system is that you are going to have full access to the court records. If a company hires your firm to file in Pensacola, a lawyer will be able to do that from their desktop here in Miami. Also, when you want to file things in Monroe County at the last minute, it wouldn’t matter because you have already been authenticated. Once you, as an attorney, are authenticated to use the system, you will be filing in all 67 counties and in all divisions, which means that all levels of the court house will be accessible through this e-portal system. Keep in mind that this is a system to submit documents and you are not going to be getting anything back from the system, and this is the difference between the e-courtesy system for those that are in Dade County.

You know, with the e-courtesy system that if I sent in a motion with a proposed order to a judge, the judge agrees with my order and with the press of a button he signs it and then that order is faxed over to me. Keep in mind that the e-portal system is not going to be doing anything in terms of sending us anything. It’s just a facilitator. It’s a gateway between the law firm and the court house. That’s what the e-portal system is and everything that you would file normally at the court house, whether you are sending it in person or through a courier or through a messenger or whatever method you were sending it to the court house, now you’re going to use the e-portal system.

Florida E-Filing Training – Part Four

judicial — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:48:28 +0000

In addition to being able to transmit your documents electronically, the nice thing will be that everyone will be able to have an image of the document. No longer in the future will we have to go to the court house to get a file and find out that a particular pleading we’re looking for in a particular file is missing. This is because everything that is sent in the portal will be imaged. The imagers are not in place right now, but hopefully should be in place by the time that this becomes mandatory, which means that you will have to open an account, depending on which area you work in. If you work in county court, in State County, then you’ll open an account in the State County Court. We have it right now for family court where you are able to use Odyssey, and you are able to view your documents. If you are in Miami Dade County and you are accustomed to using Odyssey, then you know how it works. If you have never worked with an imager and you have never seen a document online, it’s similar to how you see it on Pacer in federal court. You ask the system, and you download the docket. Once you see the little image in its place, you click it, and you are able to see it. However, keep in mind that each county will require you to open separate accounts. We’ll have more information on that as well, and how that is going to work.

So the nice thing about this e-portal system is that it is going to alleviate the process of your firm file having to go through 7 or 8 or 10 different clerks. In other words, when you go to the court house right now, there is a clerk that takes your documents and stamps them. There is a clerk that gives you an actual receipt. There is another clerk that makes a file for you so that the court has an actual file and then there is a docketing clerk, and there is a filing clerk and there are several other clerks in-between. When you use the portal, all of that is unnecessary because the portal will do that in one shot. Which means that when you send in your document electronically, your document will be sent and filed as you file it now in the court house and will also be recorded if necessary – so if you had a Notice of Appeal the system will know that it is also a recordable document and the system will know at the end. In addition, they are working on giving you a receipt, and they are working on that particular field right now. In addition, once the imager becomes available, you will be able to see your document. So it won’t take two months for us to pick up the file and see that there was a particular compliant in the file. If something is filed on January 22nd, that particular complaint would not be seen for probably another month to a month and a half. With the e-portal system, you’ll be able to see it instantaneously when the imager comes into place.

Now, the e-portal system will become mandatory on April 1st, which means that every law firm in the State of Florida, whether you are practicing in small claims or county court or where your practicing county court, evictions, foreclosures and family court matters are, the system will be the same. All of these different practices of law will have to use the e-portal system. It is not a system that is going to be arbitrary as to whether I want to go and use the portal or not use it. This is a system where you and your staff are all going to have to use this one main portal. Keep in mind that this is going to be the way to track all the cases. So, we can’t have people going to the court house and doing certain things at the court house and having other people going through the portal. So what happens is that they mainstream this court e-filing portal system and so that it not only gives you your case number, records your documents, provides you with an image of your document and actually records it all, but it also does everything in a one-stop-shop. After you submit something electronically, it will not necessarily be accepted as I said before. If you sent it in and your case numbers and the pleading now don’t match the number that you’ve selected in the portal, then this is a reason for denial. If you don’t file your document properly, then it is a reason for denial. If you didn’t have the proper template for the e-signature, then it is a reason for denial. There are many additional reasons for denial. A good reason why the webinar is so important is the possibility of denial. Also, we talk about e-courtesy has nothing to do with the e-portal system. E-Courtesy in State County means that many of the judges are only taking their pleadings electronically, so please, do take this into consideration. E-courtesy and the e-portal have nothing to do with each other. They are two different systems. One main thing that you want to remember is that the portal system will be your gateway to the court house and so if you are filing any new cases or filing any subsequent pleading, whether it is an answer, a motion, a notice, or a memorandum, you have to use the main e-portal system to get that pleading, but it’s not a physical court file anymore… This is going to be a paperless system. Now when you have a judge and the judge you are assigned to takes e-courtesy, you have to send him or her documents through e-courtesy and it has nothing to do with the e-portal system, and we will explain further in detail how that works.
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Register For The E-Filing Coaching and Training Program

Register your firm here

Find out more details here or call 305-347-3353 for more information

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Preview Tele-Conference Call – March 15th, 2013

Every month for the next few months I will host a private 30 minute preview tele-confernce call. This call provides you with the most recent highlights of the Florida E-Filing system. It will also provide some insight into what I cover in my full Florida E-Filing Evolution Coaching and Training Program that I host monthly as well.

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Florida E-Filing Resouces

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Florida E-Filing Training – Part Three

judicial — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:36:44 +0000

In addition to being able to transmit your documents electronically, the nice thing will be that everyone will be able to have an image of the document. No longer in the future will we have to go to the court house to get a file and find out that a particular pleading we’re looking for in a particular file is missing. This is because everything that is sent in the portal will be imaged. The imagers are not in place right now, but hopefully should be in place by the time that this becomes mandatory, which means that you will have to open an account, depending on which area you work in. If you work in county court, in State County, then you’ll open an account in the State County Court. We have it right now for family court where you are able to use Odyssey, and you are able to view your documents. If you are in Miami Dade County and you are accustomed to using Odyssey, then you know how it works. If you have never worked with an imager and you have never seen a document online, it’s similar to how you see it on Pacer in federal court. You ask the system, and you download the docket. Once you see the little imager in its place, you click it, and you are able to see it. However, keep in mind that each county will require you to open separate accounts. We’ll have more information on that as well, and how that is going to work.

Register For The E-Filing Coaching and Training Program

Register your firm here

Find out more details here or call 305-347-3353 for more information

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Preview Tele-Conference Call – March 15th, 2013

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Florida E-Filing Resouces

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Florida E-Filing Training – Part Two

judicial — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 12:02:03 +0000

Currently you have less than 48 days to train your team on e-filing. In that time frame, all law firms in Florida will be processing all of their paper work through this main system. You will have to designate a person to do it. You would have to commit yourself to doing a log. You would have to commit yourself to doing your billable. You would have to see whether you have to train someone specifically just to do properly what you are responsible for doing.

Keep in mind that, depending on how large your law firm is if your firm is practicing in Circuit Court or County Court, whether you are doing small claims or you’re doing claims in excess of $15,000 makes no difference. Previously you would take your package to the court house, and the clerk would actually stamp your documents and give you a case number. You would also present them with a check. You would also present extra copies for filing. Now with this e-portal system, you won’t have to do any of that. Everything will be done electronically through your office.

What does this mean? This means you have to change your whole office and infrastructure and how everything is done. Why? Because the portal works on two phased functions. First, you send in your document and the portal accepts your document. The fact that it accepts your document as being successfully transmitted doesn’t mean that your document has been accepted. So there are rules to having your document accepted. If your document is not accepted, it will be rejected, which means you will have to redo the process.

It is like, for example, when you go to the Court House and you bring in a package and your Civil Cover Sheet is not marked correctly or it is not signed. The clerk reviews it and then sends your courier back to the office and lets them know what is wrong with the actual document. Well, this is the same, and once you submit it, it is going to give you a successful transmission. However, that doesn’t mean that the court is going to be accepting your documents. There is a process for accepting your documents, and that is where the webinar comes into play because we explain everything, including how your documents will be accepted and the rejection process.

Now, keep in mind that the Florida e-filing system is going to be a mandatory system and has been mandated by the Florida Supreme Court. This is a state-wide filing system in Florida. It is not a matter of choice as to whether an attorney wants to use this system or wants to divert everything to the main Court House or to deliver something to a court house. This means that once the system becomes mandatory, everything that you do with the court house will have to be done electronically as you already do with Pacer. This is a system that mimics Pacer. It is very similar and doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that we are accustomed to in the Pacer system, but it does function.

The functioning of the system allows your documents to go through a portal which serves as a gateway to the court house. In other words, you transmit your documents through this gateway. The portal receives it, and if you select Monroe County, Pensacola County, or Tallahassee County, the documents will be sent to county selected. Also, depending on what court and division you select, your documents will be appropriately processed. If you select county court, it will be a CC matter, and if you select a civil circuit court, then it will be a CA matter.

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Preview Tele-Conference Call – March 15th, 2013

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Register For The E-Filing Coaching and Training Program – February 22nd, 2013

Register your firm here

Find out more details here or call 305-347-3353 for more information

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Florida E-Filing Resouces

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Under 6 Weeks Till Mandatory E-Filing In Florida

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Florida E-Filing Training – Part One

judicial — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 21:08:51 +0000

Maria Gutierrez here with the Judicial Process and Support and I thank you all for taking your time to read this e-filing e-mail training series. This is the first of a multi-email series that I will be sending you over the next two weeks.

The reason why I wanted to do this series is because I know that there is still a lot of confusion out there on the e-filing portal and how it is going to affect your law firm. Basically, this e-portal will be responsible for all of your court filings in State Court. Even today, I got a call that asked me what ‘state court’ was, and actually which department, or divisions were going to be part of this e-portal system.

Keep in mind that this portal system is for everyone that is practicing in the State of Florida, in the county, in Circuit, Family, Juvenile, Traffic and also Criminal. Now, Criminal and Traffic will be mandatory closer to the end of the year but as far as the five divisions that are concerned. The top five divisions which are County, Circuit, Family, Juvenile and Probate – those five divisions will become mandatory in the State of Florida, now 1st April.

Let me explain how this is going to work and how this is going to affect your law firm, like I said, this will become mandatory in 1st April 2013, this is a process that has been going on for the past two years with e-filing in the State of Florida. On 1st April, we’re going to have 67 counties that are already going to be on board for the e-filing within the State of Florida. What that means is that whether you are filing a new case, or a subsequent filing – everything will be done through this one main portal. Law firms have already been on the way and have been preparing for this new transition.

Everyone in your office will be responsible for taking part of the program. No longer are couriers going to the court house and also your processing company will not be able to process your new case filings, In addition, you will not be able to deliver anything to the court in terms of filings are concerned. New case filings that you may have, you will have to use the main portal. Subsequent filings, like your answers and your motions and your notices – all of those will also have to be done through the main portal.

So how is that going to work? Once you have prepared your document, you actually have two ways of submitting your document. You can actually go to a scanner and scan your document, then save it to a final scan folder and submit it through the portal. Alternatively, you can have an e-signature on your document, which means that when you prepare you document and have it on Word, you have an e-signature template, which also has to go through the guidelines, then you can also submit your document that way.

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Preview Tele-Conference Call – March 15th, 2013

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Find out more details here or call 305-347-3353 for more information

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Florida E-Filing Resouces

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Under 6 Weeks Till Mandatory E-Filing In Florida

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Judicial Support Blog

E-Filing Audio Podcast April 8-12

E-Filing Tip: My Court Filing (Dashboard)

Register For The E-Filing Coaching and Training Program Available Dates: April 15th, April 26th, May 17th, May 31st

Florida E-Filing Training Series – Part Eight

Florida E-Filing Training – Part Seven

Florida E-Filing Training – Part Six

Florida E-Filing Training Series – Part Five

Florida E-Filing Training – Part Four

Florida E-Filing Training – Part Three

Florida E-Filing Training – Part Two

Florida E-Filing Training – Part One

Register For The E-Filing Coaching and Training Program

Available Dates: April 15th, April 26th, May 17th, May 31st