The courthouse e-filing revolution; its impact on lawyers and law practice

I’m finally perusing my bloglines.com readings a bit more, catching up with some fine blogs and news sources I’ve neglected for a while.

One such being Michael Arkfeld’s Digital Practice of Law (”A daily digest of cases, comments and practical references for applying technology to the practice of law and litigation support”)

There I found a link to a nice description of the South Carolina federal courts’ transition to e-filing, on TheState.com: “Courts to launch computer filing; Documents will be available online” by Cliff LeBlanc

Some higlights:

South Carolina’s federal court is among the last in the nation to make the shift, . . .

Computer users in South Carolina will be able to inspect cases electronically that are as much as seven years old . . . because the court clerk’s office began scanning documents in 1997.

The practical benefit of electronic conversion is that the court effectively will never close — as long as you have access to a computer. “Twenty-four-hour access, seven days a week,” . . .

The new system even will notify parties to a case through e-mail of any developments, such as the latest motion by the other side.

Lawyers will have no more worries about rushing a courier to the courthouse or hoping the postal service will not be too slow to meet a judge’s deadline. . .

And this system will eliminate a lot of paper.

Well, what’s it all mean for lawyers and the practice of law? Some downside, but on balance I personally love it.

First, let me say this is old hat to me by now, with the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis having been doing e-filing for some time now (already over a year?)

One clear implication is that the “public record” is now much more public. You don’t have to go to the courthouse anymore to read all the nasty allegations and vicious legal arguments being filed. Just hop on the Internet, and sign up for a PACER account.

Couple that with the fact that every person with a computer is now a potential journalist/blogger, and maybe you can begin to comprehend the enhanced fear of negative publicity parties to disputes should be considering before they file lawsuits.

Another implication is that the lawyer’s day now truly never ends. We can procrastinate until midnight and still make a filing deadline. We can arrive at work way early, hoping to get a jump on other things, only to find a document opposing counsel filed at 2:00 AM in our e-mail, demanding our attention way before the day’s snail mail arrives.

And if we’re an overworked, overpaid, but nonetheless exploited associate, we can have an assignment dumped on us at the end of the “regular work day,” to be completed in time for a midnight filing. Nahh . . . we didn’t want to go home for dinner anyway, did we?

On the other hand, with a little techological finesse, we can go home for dinner. We can file documents with the court and monitor the progress of our cases from anywhere, anytime. Go home at 4:00, have dinner and a drink, sit down in our favorite chair with our laptop, make our final edits to that brief, and then file it over wireless without even leaving the chair.

Much better than those mad dashes to the courthouse. I used to personally drive the 20 miles to the federal courthouse downtown, playing beat the clock and living in the fast lane, to get a motion on file before the clerk’s office closed . . . often just barely making it . . . . No more.

Finally, the elimination of paper, and the related storage and retrieval problems, should be an inspiration to all of us whose offices are still not yet paperless. What are we waiting for?

Our outgoing documents and deposition transcripts are already saved electronically on our networks, now all incoming court pleadings and orders can be captured right away upon email notification by the court. All we need to do is start scanning incoming correspondence, file notes, and evidentiary documents, and the whole file will be electronic.

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