A LexisNexis® Webinar Report
By Samantha Drake
Advancements in technology are forcing law firms and courts to reinvent the way they do business. Working with hard copies of documents has given way to emailing digital files, and now even email has become passé in favor of e-filing
A survey by the American Bar Association confirms that the majority of attorneys in the United States use e-filing technology. CM/ECF e-filing is available in:
- All 94 federal district courts and all 93 bankruptcy courts;
- The Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims;
- All Circuit Courts of Appeal except the 11th Circuit; and
- Bankruptcy appellate panels.
The increasing availability of e-filing in U.S. courts is prompting attorneys to find more efficient ways to manage their e-filings, share documents with parties, including opposing counsel, and store and track documents online in a secure case file repository in both large and small litigation.
Lower Costs, Higher Efficiency
E-Service platforms, such as LexisNexis File & Serve, can dramatically reduce costs to law firms compared to paper-based or even email document exchange, enabling attorneys to pass those savings on to clients, said Kendall Smith, Senior Director, Business Development for LexisNexis File & Serve.
Smith participated on a panel along with Barry Vaughan of Kasdan, Simonds, Weber & Vaughan, Seth A. Katz of Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carl J. West, Robert Klieger of Kendall Brill & Klieger, and Jason E. Turner of Law Offices of Christopher P. Ruiz.
The webinar, titled "Why and How to Use E-Service in Everyday Practice," was produced by HB Litigation Conferences on Sept. 27, 2011.
"E-filing is here and that's a really good thing," Smith said. "The increased e-filing availability has prompted the legal market to seek out additional benefits from the electronic exchange beyond the mere delivery to the court. You can all get the benefits of e-filing by using a tool like e-Service."
Beyond E-Filing
But when implemented alone, e-filing is often an incomplete solution for case parties. "In many instances, it just solves the court document delivery to the clerk's office, but the benefits stop at the virtual clerk's window," Smith pointed out. Documents may come into court electronically, but then must be printed out and forwarded traditionally in hard copy. And, what about the myriad document exchanges, both filed and unfiled, that occur in a case?
All sides in a litigation share common challenges in managing litigation case documents and information. LexisNexis File & Serve and other e-Service platforms provide parties with multi-directional exchanges in real-time, with a shared repository of case-related documents and correspondence.
While federal courts have led the way by implementing a single e-filing tool - PACER - the states are lagging behind. This "fragmentation of the e-filing landscape" is the result of the more than 16,000 state and local courts nationwide having different budgets, technology, priorities, rules, and vendors, Smith explained. At this point, only a few states have statewide e-filing capability.
View from the Bench
Judge Carl West of the Los Angeles Superior Court embraced the e-Service platform from the beginning, back in 2001.
"It showed me that I could have access to a lot of information that otherwise had to come through my staff and through files, and I found that to be very, very useful," he said. "I've gone from two cases on e-Service to all of my cases on e-Service."
In fact, mandating that parties use e-Service is now his first order of business when a case is assigned to him, West added.
"I see e-Service as an alternative to court-sponsored systems that we can't afford and that probably won't be implemented as a result of lack of funds and infrastructure to implement them in our lifetimes," West notes.
The cost savings are obvious. "We have no postage costs out of my court. All of our orders are served on the platform," said West. Additionally, "I see increasing efficiency in my staff using the e-Service platform to access documents as opposed to going to the hard files."
Hard copies of documents are still necessary, but they are immediately filed away. "If people want to review the files, they are up to date because papers aren't being shuffled around between my chambers and individuals who have access or need for them," West explained.
For the courts, the benefits of e‐Service include:
- Better, faster communication;
- Better use of staff time;
- Instant access to case files;
- Minimized discovery issues; and
- Verifiable proof of delivery.
Something for Everyone
Law firms derive similar benefits from using an e-Service platform.
Barry Vaughan, a plaintiff attorney whose cases include construction defect litigation with large numbers of parties, said e-Service saves printing, copying, and mailing costs as well as considerable manpower hours.
"Once a case gets rolling, we move for a preliminary order to use LexisNexis File and Serve," he said. "As soon as we do that, my staff relaxes."
Defense attorney Jason Turner said e-Service "is exceptionally useful because it provides an absolute guarantee that something has been filed with the court. There is no longer a need to worry about whether documents are filed; there's an easy way to verify when documents are filed." This eliminates disputes with opposing counsel about when documents are filed, he added.
"We're talking about something that creates a unique system where you can have everything backed up where all of the parties in the case can look and see what's done at all times and creates a balanced platform for both plaintiffs and defendants," according to Turner.
In addition, "there's no worry about when an order has been signed by a court. You always know because the court always sends it back to you immediately through the same system," said Turner.
Email is Risky Business
Let's face it, for most attorneys, email is yesterday's news. The panelists agreed that using email to communicate with case parties and the court is highly problematic. Email is risky form of communication for a variety of reasons including:
- No verifiable proof of delivery exists;
- It is not secure from a client privacy standpoint;
- Technical glitches can occur at any time;
- Once an email is deleted, it's gone;
- There is no way to organize large amounts of documents and messages;
- No shared access is possible;
- Mailbox size limits and spam filters can cause emails to bounce back and prohibit the sending of large files; and
- Human error can result in the wrong files being attached, the wrong email addresses being typed in, and/or parties' email addresses not being updated in a timely fashion.
West said that for substantial document production, however, e-Service is not an ideal option at this time. Parties may need to set up a separate document repository for large-scale document production and storage.
Size Really Doesn't Matter
E‐Service works for cases of all sizes, not just complex, multi-party litigation and for all documents, both filed and non-filed with the court.
"I've found e-Service has some incredible benefits that apply to small cases as well as large cases," said Robert Klieger. In particular, "It's an amazing document management system. It's really difficult in a smaller firm to actually have a single electronic repository where you can go for document information."
Klieger recalled how, in a recent case that was not on e-Service, he had to pore through his emails to find out when certain disclosures had been served. "It was, needless to say, a cumbersome process," he said. And, unfortunately, he added, if he had to find those disclosures again, he would have to go through the exact same process.
"With e-Service, you essentially have a built-in repository that takes up no space on your system and you know exactly where to go when you need to find something," said Klieger.
'Bells and Whistles'
West points out that e-Service providers offer a variety of "bells and whistles" that can help attorneys and staff work smarter, not harder. Such features include:
Summary of filings. Attorneys and judges may receive hundreds of emails a day - and who has time to go through all that? E-Service providers can provide a summary of all filings per case, per day. West said he can scan through everything that has been filed in his cases each day in about 15 minutes.
Message board. West said he uses the message board extensively to communicate with parties in his cases. "The beauty of the message board from the court's point of view is, when I send out a message, I know everyone got it," he noted. Communicating via message board can also help reduce the number of "routine, pro forma" appearances parties need to make.
Calendaring. A calendar function helps keep all parties on the same page when it comes to events such as depositions.
According to the panelists, an e-Service provider must offer the following essential features:
- A robust, searchable repository;
- Real-time service lists;
- Customizable folders;
- Verifiable proof of delivery;
- Multi-user access and tracking;
- Alerting mechanisms;
- Message boards;
- Multi-file format support; and
- Customer support/training.
Optional, but nice-to-have features include repository-wide search capabilities, offline delivery methods, availability of original and PDF formats, payment/invoice options, and the ability to integrate with other products.
The latest and possibly the most sought-after option is mobile apps so attorneys can use the e-Service platform anywhere on their laptops, tablets and smart phones.
E-Service "is not a panacea," said West. But the significant benefits to the bar and the bench reach far beyond document delivery and attorneys who want to use e-Service need to promote the platform to judges and other parties to get them on board.
"Nobody is going to say no," West predicted. "And then together, you can make things work a little better."
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Posted
Mon, Nov 7 2011 11:24 AM
by
Kendall Smith
Filed under: Efiling, EService, File & Serve News, electronic service, e-Filing Industry News