Welcome to the future. In the future (which apparently began early this month) there is no need to "file" a physical pleading down at the courthouse. Instead, there is a magical force known as "e-filing." By e-filing documents, we are finally able to force those attorneys who still insist on drafting their pleadings using typewriters straight into retirement.
However, the future is not without its problems. A small but vocal group of attorneys is beginning to voice their concerns about the cost of e-filing, which is $6 per document plus an additional $4 for "e-serving" (which presumably involves a T-1000 effectuating service for you) - the future is AWESOME!
So, counsel - now you must choose between buying your morning latte and filing your client's pleading. [cue Jeopardy music] Apparently, some people envisioned the future as being slightly cheaper - who did you think was going to pay for those file clerks we no longer need?
Honestly, we're not well versed in filing fees. Don't get us wrong, we're aware that there is such a fee, and someone in our firm has (hopefully) been paying said fee ... but we're pretty far removed from that process. Our feigned rage in the title was solely an attention grabber - sorry about that.
The good people at Wiznet apparently anticipated the rage of those who actually know about filing fees, and put up a little cost-benefit analysis to head them off at the pass. According to Wiznet, e-filing (when coupled with e-serving) saves attorneys anywhere from $6.33 to $25.50 for an average 15-page filing depending upon which service you previously used.
So here's our question: What's the fuss? We'd like to hear from those of you grumbling about the cost of the new system, leave us your thoughts in the comments.
The six bucks is cheaper than what you're paying your staff runner or one of the services. Plus, it's just plain a better system - the Feds have used it for several years and it works well. The Bus. Ct. Judges sometimes order it and it's been required for the CD people for a while. This is long overdue - now if they could just mandate electronic service we could save the waste of time in the office doing paper service of all those filings.
ReplyDeleteI suppose this article in the Sun today is another reason why e-filing is better:
ReplyDeletePolice: Legal runner returned to home, shot husband and wife
By Cara McCoy (contact)
Monday, Feb. 8, 2010 | 4:42 p.m.
A man who worked for a legal runner firm serving civil papers is facing murder, kidnapping and robbery charges after a husband and wife he served papers on were attacked last month in their Las Vegas home.
Gregory L. Hover, 38, was arrested Saturday in connection with the shootings of Roberta and Julio Romero. Julio Romero was shot dead in his home in southwestern Las Vegas in the early morning hours of Jan. 25. His wife, Roberta, was shot in the face, but survived.
A criminal complaint was filed today charging Hover with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping, each count with a deadly weapon; two counts of robbery with use of a deadly weapon; two counts of burglary, with one burglary count enhanced with use of a deadly weapon; attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon; and one count of coercion with use of a deadly weapon.
According to an arrest report, Hover first made contact with the Romeros when he came to their home, near the intersection of Jones Boulevard and Russell Road, on Jan. 24 in search of a person named Santiago Pozzi. Pozzi, a friend of the Romeros, owed $10,000, Hover said, telling the couple he had legal papers he needed to serve on Pozzi, the report indicated.
The Romeros told Hover they hadn’t seen Pozzi in two years. Hover then asked who lived in the home with the couple, to which the Romeros replied it was just the two of them.
At that point, Hover apologized for the inconvenience and left, the report says. The Romeros then went to bed.
At about 12:30 a.m. Jan. 25, Roberta Romero was awakened by noises in her kitchen and found Hover, who had been at her house earlier that evening, inside her home. He had a silver, semiautomatic handgun, she told police.
Roberta Romero asked the man, later identified as Hover, where her husband was. Hover motioned for her to come into the kitchen and said everything was all right, she told police. When she approached him, he pointed his gun at her and demanded money, the report said.
Roberta Romero gave the man her wallet and the PIN number for her ATM card. The man then forced her into a bedroom closet while he went through some dresser drawers; his cell phone rang and shortly thereafter he opened the closet door and fired at Roberta Romero, striking her in the face, the police report said.
Police later traced the civil court action filed against Pozzi to a local law firm, which provided investigators with an affidavit of attempted service in the case signed by Gregory Hover.
Hover was registered with Metro Police as working as a process server.
On Thursday, police took a photographic lineup to UMC and Roberta Romero was able to identify Hover. He was interviewed by detectives on Friday and admitted to being at the Romero residence on Jan. 24 but said he left and never returned. The interview ended when Hover requested to speak with an attorney, the report said.
Hover is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday morning in Las Vegas Justice Court.
The problem with state court efiling is that it pales in comparison to what the feds use. In its first week of operation, the state court efiling system is so overloaded that it is taking DAYS for documents to be "approved" for filing. Good luck making your deadlines!
ReplyDeleteI personally like e-filing. Before it was mandatory, it was convenient. Now that it is mandatory, the system is clogged. It is cheaper in the long run for the client to save on runner fees.
ReplyDeleteYou could save on service fees by just drafting a "Consent to Service Electronically" and have the other side sign it, and then serve them through email or fax, instead of having the Court serve for you.
My only gripe with it is that some judges are still demanding physical courtsey copies. Kinda defeats the benefit of not using a runner.
ReplyDeleteHere is my two cents opinion with e-filing. For some big firms that employ runners I would totally agree that it saves money using e-filing compared to paying a runner $8, $10 or $15 an hour to file.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I used to use Legal Wings which charged a flat rate of $75.00per month to pick up from my office once a day as many documents (COM, Motion's, Affidavits,etc.) to file with the Court. The Court with paper filing did not charge a fee to file these documents(other than filing fees, motion fees, etc., that were already in place).
Now, with e-filing it is $6.00 to file a one page Certificate of Mailing for example. So over the course of a month that is a much bigger bill than the $75.00 I use to pay. I would file a variety of COM's, ROC's, Affidavits, etc. on my civil and family cases.
Certainly, if you are billing your client on a retainer basis, the client will absorb the cost, but for example if you are handling divorces on a flat fee then that is a much higher cost the attorney will absorb than in the past.
Further, now to file a Complaint, not only is it $270.00 (the statutory file fee), but if paying by credit card, the attorney must pay the 3% transaction fee, plus the $6.00 e-file fee.
Also, as 9:16 stated, most departments still want paper copies so a runner will still need to be used. A complaint still needs to be personally served by a process server and if a case has a pro per on the other side, then more than likely you will still need to mail a hard copy.
I think in the long term e-filing will be a good thing, but if it mirrored the federal electronic filing then I think it would be better.
In regard to courtesy copies, that is not a big deal. They could be dropped off every couple days...either by the attorney or a runner service depending on schedules.
ReplyDeletere: 11:11
ReplyDelete"...either by the attorney or a runner service depending on schedules."
Translation...your still paying a runner service (or an attorney for their time to act as a runner) plus the $6.00 per item (plus the 3% surcharge).
If you practice in family court, you will not be able to fire your runner. Documents that require signatures from the clerk (Summons, Joint Preliminary Injunction) or the Judge (Orders, Decrees of Divorce, etc.) as well as courtesy copies must be sent to court by runner and returned by runner.
ReplyDeleteWith the $6.00 charge per document filed and the additional 3%, the cost of a Complaint for Divorce goes up $58.11 from the recently increased fee of $289.00.
8:05 here - yes the federal system is much better, but remember it's subsidized by the 8 cents per page we pay to look at stuff on Pacer other than the "one free look."
ReplyDeleteMy office has a practice of saving the federal court "one free look" as a PDF, so it can be viewed and printed later, if necessary
ReplyDeleteYawn! This topic is borrrring. It was more interesting when we were talking about the 4'10" Heavy Hitter. Heehee.Anywho,back to hourly billing.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely with 10:23. We use Legal Wings as well, and while their service can be lacking, they are cost effective. Now we still have to use legal wings for everything that needs a judge's signature or has to be issued by the Court, and we have to pay the additional filing fee.
ReplyDeleteI could be wrong, but I thought that when federal court made e-filing mandatory, it was free to file. The per document fee is a big difference compared to filing in federal court.
E-filing rocks! As with any transition, there will be kinks to work out. We were just as frustrated as the next firm when our filings took two days to be approved. The fee of $6 does outweigh the costs of runners. Re: Legal Winds - it only makes a difference for the flat fee items which you can add on to the filing fees and pass on to the clients. Since it is a flat fee, the attorney should know what documents need to be filed and add those $6 e-filing fees to the filing fees. No problemo. The non-flat fee cases should not be an issue re: Legal Wings because you can pass all those six dollar charges on to the client. What those attorneys are really sore about is that they get Legal Wings for $75 a month and charge their clients $25 courier charge for all filings. Now, their COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) went from a flat fee of $75 to $6 for filing. Or worse yet, they can't make any markup because there is no courier charge with e-filing and they can only pass the $6 e-filing charge on to their clients, instead of marking up the courier charge. Stop being so greedy. We make enough on the billable hour, or at least we should. Finally, e-filing is better for the environment. I'm not a tree hugger, but we can all do our best to combat global warming.
ReplyDeleteI have been using Wiznet since it was implemented in the CD world 6 or so years ago. Once the kinks were worked out, I LOVED it. When it expanded to being available to non-CD civil cases, it was wonderful.
ReplyDeleteMy only issue is that for about the past year, some filed documents (whether e-filed or paper filed) have not been showing up on Wiznet. What's the point of paying for unlimited access to all pleadings if those pleadings aren't there? I've had to call the clerk's office before because I've needed to get copies of certain pleadings, and THEY can access them, tell me they're on Wiznet (but they're not), and the Clerk can print them out for me, for a fee. (If they WERE on Wiznet, I could print them out for free!)
This started occurring around the time we switched from Blackstone to Odyssey. Not sure if it's related or a coincidence. But it's frustrating to not be able to access the pleadings when our office pays for unlimited access.
I just registered and filed my first complaint with wiznet. Took about 30-45 mins first time, mostly because I had to call the court and then wiznet because there is no obvious "Open a new case" button... turns out on your first case you enter "test" for the case name, "similar" from the drop box, and that will bring up the Initiate Case button.
ReplyDeleteWho makes the money? The County? Wiznet? Both? For sure, the cost is shocking in that it is an additional cost. I would say that if it is a first-rate system (searchable, fast, easy to use), it would be worth it. Government is not supposed to profit off of the people. Who cut this deal with Wiznet? Is it the same people that cut the deal with construction of the courthouse? A cost-profit-benefit analysis should be performed by a neutral party. This is a big deal here. I'm all for e-filing. I am all for our depleted government meeting its costs. I am not all for Wiznet's principals and/or government screwing litigants (in my opinion) over at a rate of $6.00 (at least) per document. Who is making the decisions over there? Clearly not somebody who has to pay the bill. What a joke.
ReplyDeleteAdministrative Order 09-12. Looks like they did a study and this is the result.
ReplyDeleteSo who's process server was this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lvrj.com/news/process-server-arrested-83999067.html
Not mine, I don't use June's illegal service.
My understanding is that the $6 fee is to cover the fees for use of a credit card. So why can't we use and e-check? So far for our firm we have not seen any cost benefit of the system. Prior to this system we did not charge a courier fee because we had a in-house runner. So now the client is getting screwed as well. Way to go Wiznet and Clark County.
ReplyDelete^ There's also a 3% charge on top, which I understood was that (meaning for a complaint it was $6 fee + ~$9 fee + $270 for the court).
ReplyDeleteNothing like a fixed expense that goes from $148 to $284 in 6 months' span. The lawyers that really get socked in the face are small PI practitioners and solos, for whom an extra $500-1k in fees per month on contingent cases really sucks.
The e-filing (at Family) is not MAC compliant. Got to find those old cruddy PC's and boot them up. So for the extra $6 bucks and other assorted fees, I get to rely upon a system that is known for instability. Oh yeah, don't send me a virus.
ReplyDeleteComrades, stop with this self-centered filth. You cannot and do not know what you need. Only the Central Committee of the Courts can know this.
ReplyDeletePay your dues and shut up. Follow the lead of your glorious representatives in the State Bar and local attorney organizations. It is better to suffer silently than to scream "owww" from the hilltops, like some capitalist hillbilly who thinks the State is here for him, and not vice-versa. Silly peasant.
The $6 fee has been around a few years, ever since e-filing was allowed for more than CD cases. The drama will ease off as the learning curve progresses for new e-filers. Court staff has the worst of it. They are completely overwhelmed.
ReplyDeleteNot to engage in thread hijacking, but why has the Court adopted Odyssey AKA Atrocity in place of Blackstone?
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I could attribute this move to is either corruption or insanity.
I am told that the extra 3% added to the statutory fees is to cover the cost of the fee charged by the credit card company. As far as I kbnow, such a surcharge is usually a violation of the merchant agreement. has anyone looked into this? Just because the court ordered us to pay the fee does not mean that it (or Wiznet) is in compliance with its contractual obligations.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it seems that we are paying a premium price for crap service. I look for documents in wiznet that I know were filed MONTHS ago, but are not available online (to us casual users, anyway).
Finally, I understand that the split on the $6 fee is 25% to the court and 75% to wiznet. With approximately 1500 filings per day taking place, you can see the motive behind this abortion of a project.
I admit that efiling is convenient; however, it should be implemented with more of an eye to service and efficiency than to greasing greedy palms.
The issue here is where is all the money going? Wiznet is making many millions of dollars per year off this program and I can assure you that they have not increased their staffing and equipment anywhere near what they are making. I am all for capitalism, but in a situation where our clients are the ones suffering from these increased fees (and/or the attorneys working on contingency), there should at least be a 50/50 split with the court system of the proceeds.
ReplyDeleteAlso, why are we paying a per filing fee in the first place? I do not know the name of the efile vendor handling the 2nd district, but there each attorney who signs up pays $100/yr for unlimited efiling. This seems to me to be a better way of paying for mandatory efiling here.
Just my .02 euros.
Make no mistake, the public (or rather the attorneys who actually wind up paying) are getting absolutely fleeced by this. A tidy $10,000 a day for a mediocre system with lots of problems that will need almost 0 operating costs in a short while. I wish I could fleece the county this bad and retire. What a bunch of idiot suckers the clerk's office or the county workers who approved this were. More of the same fleecing by the government.
ReplyDeleteHaving the Judges take over the Clerk's office was both unconstitutional and stupid. Hardcastle made a big mistake.
ReplyDelete