The Appellate Lawyers Association’s Special Committee on E-Filing has issued its "Report on E-Filing Issues," suggesting areas of improvement in Illinois reviewing courts’ e-filing system. The report was compiled based on the Committee members’ own experiences as well as feedback from the ALA’s membership.
The report highlights the positive aspects of the e-filing system, such as reduced costs, administrative ease, convenience, and responsiveness of court clerks. The report’s recommendations for improvement fall into 10 general categories:
- Uniformity & Clarity of Rules: Implementing uniform e-filing rules to reduce variance among the circuit and reviewing courts;
- Acceptance & Rejection of Filings: Encouraging uniformity in the reasons for accepting or rejecting filings among courts and establishing a mechanism to backdate corrected filings;
- Docket Access: Ensuring that attorneys have access to a case’s full docket through re:SearchIL, similar to federal courts’ Public Access to Court Electronic Records (“PACER”) system;
- Service: Allowing Tyler to add e-mail addresses from the eFile IL service database and listing all parties on whom service is actually made in e-mails to filing attorneys;
- Menu Options: Expanding the menu options for categorizing filings to include oral argument confirmations, letter filings, motions to cite additional authority, and motions to publish Rule 23 orders;
- Distribution of Orders & Opinions: Allowing courts to transmit orders and opinions to parties through the e-filing system;
- The Record on Appeal: Transmitting the entire record on appeal in a single link rather than separate e-mails;
- Courtesy Copies: Developing a more uniform approach to the requirement and number of paper courtesy copies of briefs;
- Technical Issues: Ensuring that all Electronic Service Filing Providers, not just Odyssey eFileIL, have full access to the e-filing system; and
- Miscellaneous: Allowing clerks to maintain limited paper filing systems to fill gaps in e-filing until the system is updated.
The full report may be found here.
