Florida Courts E-Filing Portal

New Clerk Academy

August 2015

E-FILING PORTAL

Carolyn Weber, Portal Program Manager

Electronic Filing

What is E-Filing?

Attorneys deliver their court documents in an electronic format to the Clerk of Court to be docketed and automatically entered into the Clerk’s electronic case file

Case initiation with case and party information

The electronic case file is readily accessible to the attorneys on the case through the internet

Florida Supreme Court mandated E-Filing for attorneys beginning 4/1/2013

E-Filing Initiatives

Examples of other states or counties within states continue to work to implement E-Filing:

New York

Texas

Vermont

California

Ohio

Iowa

Florida is “far ahead of the curve”

Tom Hall, former Florida Supreme Court Clerk

Florida Bar News

E-Filing Benefits to Filers

Automated service of court documents

Conservative postage savings estimate $250 million

E-File documents from anywhere via the internet

Filers do not have to rush to the court house before 5 pm to file a document to meet a deadline

The official time stamp is the date and time the filing is received at the portal

Electronic access to the official court file from anywhere

Centralized, secure website to pay filing fees to all filing jurisdictions

E-Filing Mandated via Portal

AOSC 09-30 mandated the statewide use of a single entry point called the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal

In order to meet the FL Supreme Court mandate, counties had to:

configure their organization within the Portal

connect electronic file transmission lines

build software to perform submission review or use the Portal Review functionality

Statewide Florida E-Filing Stats

The Florida Courts E-Filing Authority directed the development of a single website for attorneys to e-file to all Florida state and appellate courts

Website is known as the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal

Over 44 million documents have been e-filed since 4/1/2013

Over $525 million has been collected in filing fees since January 2011

Over 90 K users

Documents received 24x7

Statewide average docketing within one day

Filing Jurisdictions

Trial Courts

67 Counties

Appellate

Courts

2nd DCA

Florida

Supreme

Court

Remaining

DCAs TBD

County Information

County E-Filing News & Info assists filers

E-Filing Portal Users

The Portal has been expanded so these

groups may e-file:

Court Reporters

Law Enforcement

Mediators

Mental Health Professionals

Process Servers

Self-represented Litigants

Submissions and Documents E-Filed by Month

0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

1200000

1400000

1600000

1800000

2000000

Submissions Documents

Average E-Filings per Hour

18 11 13 5 11 106306

1570

4013

5253

5855

4602

5067

6315

8183

7832

3379

982

498290 206 243 155

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

1am 2am 3am 4am 5am 6am 7am 8am 9am 10am 12pm 1pm 2pm 3pm 4pm 5pm 6pm 7pm 8pm 9pm 10pm 11pm 12pm

Court Filing Fees Paid

2011 – Portal opens for voluntary use

2012 – Full year of voluntary use

2013 – April 1, mandatory for attorneys

2014 – Full year of mandatory use

2015 – Through of July 1, 2015

Florida Courts E-Filing Authority

E-Filing Authority

Governs the portal which operates under the rules and standards set by the Florida Supreme Court in consultation with the Florida Courts Technology Commission

Website provides:

Meeting schedule and materials

Archive materials

Reports

Documents

E-Filing Authority Board

Portal Change Advisory Board

Reports to the E-Filing Authority

Advisory board comprised of clerk staff from across the state

Each vendor group

Each clerk department

Reviews software enhancement requests

Recommends enhancements and priorities to the Authority Board

Advisory meets monthly as needed

Major Projects

Implementation of Access to Justice Forms

System-to-system e-filing for attorneys

E-Filing Standardization

Divisions

Case Types

Sub Types

Document Descriptions

Routine Support

Two software releases per year:

Clerk staff test with us to ensure compatibility and quality

CiviTek and Clerk staff work together to ensure submissions are delivered successfully and that the portal is updated with the correct submission status

IP Address maintenance

Configuration support

E-Filing Fees

Filers pay statutory filing fees directly to the

portal

Filing fees are paid to each county daily

FCCC Banking reconciles bank payment with

fees paid

Performs collections on unsettled fees

Portal and CCIS

CCIS provides access to official court file

through the Portal

Portal will pass filer role to CCIS to comply

with AOSC 15-18

Portal is the entry point for case information

which flows to the county CMS and then to

CCIS

Demonstration

News and Information

Online help

E-Filing

Clerk Review

My Cases