The Atlanta Lawyer December/January 2020 | Page 18

How E-Filing Fits into the Law It Is All About E-filing. What Did You Expect? T JENA EMORY Copeland Stair Kingman & Lovell, LLP [email protected] he New Law In March of 2018, Georgia passed t h e following l a w regarding Superior mandatory e-filing in and State Courts: On and after January 1, 2019, except as provided in paragraph (3) of this subsection, all pleadings and any other document related thereto filed by an attorney to initiate a civil action or in a civil case in a superior court shall be filed by electronic means through the court’s electronic filing service provider. O.C.G.A. § 15-6-11 (b)(1). All the lawyers in Georgia rejoiced. The days of paper filing, mailing documents, and calling to see whether a filing was received were gone, or at least we thought so. This new law has been in effect for a year, and this article will discuss my experiences under it. 18 December/January 2020 Prior to Mandatory E-Filing I personally have never practiced without at least some county and federal courts allowing e-filing of documents. The non- e-filed counties were always the ones that got me in trouble with my boss. I know I am not truly an expert on life without e-filing, but my general impression of the experience was that it was one of great concern. Several steps had to be taken when a county did not have an e-filing system in place. First, if a county did not e-file documents, then you needed to calendar a date to mail your document in order for it to reach the court by the legal deadline. Next, you had to call the court, once you mailed your document, to confirm that your filing was timely received. Then, you had to wait on the file stamped document to be mailed to your office in a reasonable amount of time. If one of these things did not happen properly, then you needed to panic. We all can agree that this process was not ideal. When I heard that Georgia was switching to mandatory e-filing, I was excited. Some people, however, were concerned about mandatory e-filing when it first came about. Many were concerned that it would limit access to court documents for both lawyers and pro se litigants. They were concerned that e-filed documents would not be available for days. People were also concerned about the cost of e-filing and the power to control public information that would be given to the private e-filing vendors. I cannot speak to whether all of these fears have been realized, but I have learned a few things along my mandatory e-filing journey. Superior Court The new mandatory e-filing law only applies to Superior and State Courts. Once the bill finally came into effect, clerk’s offices across the state went into a transition period, which was to be expected. But even with the law in full effect, there are still inconsistencies. The e-filing process is not uniform from county to county even for Superior Courts. In addition, the counties are also issuing their own e-filing rules which can require additional payments for filings longer than 50 pages or prohibit proposed orders from being e-filed. For the attorney regularly practicing in more than one county, the system is full of pitfalls. One of my surprises under the new mandatory