NJ District Court Launches New Version of Electronic Filing System

by Christina Frangiosa

Effective November 15, 2009, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey implemented a revised version of its Electronic Court Filing (“ECF”) system. See CM/ECF Version 4.0 Public Release Notes, October 6, 2009.

According to the Notice, the following changes are now in effect:

* Added a checkbox for attorneys to confirm whether they have made any redactions in the document to be filed. The login screen also now contains hyperlinks to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure regarding redaction requirements. (For more on the redaction requirements, see my prior post about the Court’s notice to the bar providing guidelines for redacting documents before filing them in the public system. See also Robert McMillan, HSBC Exposed Sensitive Bankruptcy Data, The New York Times, December 4, 2009, which discusses the redaction problem more broadly. )

* Implemented the changes imposed by the amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure with regard to the calculation of various deadlines.

* Streamlined document and attachment uploading to appear on a single screen.

* Renumbered documents and their attachments.

* Modified the user interface for reference during docketing.

* Added an option to subscribe to an RSS Feed for notifications, with links to docket sheets and documents. (Does not include restricted or sealed information.)

* Updated user interface for e-mail information.

The Court’s notice provides more detail, and I encourage you to review it in its entirety. For more information about the amendments to the Federal Rules, see Notice To The Bar – Notice of Federal Rules Amendments, December 3, 2009, which also provides a link to the text of the new rules.

The Court also announced that effective December 1, 2009, attorneys wishing to register for the ECF system can no longer merely certify that they completed the online tutorial on the Court’s web site. Instead, they must attend “hands on” training held at the courthouse or in-house at a law firm. See Notice to The Bar – New CM/ECF Registration Requirements.