Counties preparing to meet anticipated e-filing timetables.

Most Florida counties are now set up to accept at least some civil case electronic filings, and all the remaining counties have begun the process of joining the statewide e-filing system.

Against the backdrop of the Supreme Court considering the following day oral arguments that included a proposed mandatory deadline requiring e-filing of all court documents, the Florida Courts E-Filing Authority met November 2 to review progress on the Internet portal that is the gateway to the e-filing system.

Aside from hearing progress on the portal, the authority made plans to improve its website and created a new committee to get feedback from court clerks and other users to help smooth the transition to an electronic world.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The meeting also saw clerks--who make up the membership of the authority--reiterate that they will have no choice but to eventually accept only electronic filing, as they can't afford to maintain both a paper and electronic filing system.

"I think it needs to be articulated many, many, many times about the costs of a dual system," said Palm Beach County Clerk Sharon Bock, an authority member.

"I'm not absolutely certain the message is getting out there that it is financially impossible for the clerks to maintain two systems for any length of time. Even for six months, it would be almost impossible to do it. We simply don't have the resources."

Melvin Cox, of the Florida Association of Court Clerks, is overseeing setting up the portal, including the computer programming and connecting various clerks' offices. He noted the Florida Courts Technology Commission, with input from the authority, set July 1, 2012, as the deadline for all clerks to be connected to the portal and ready to receive civil cases, and December 31, 2012, as the deadline for all clerks to be ready to accept criminal cases.

(At the oral argument the next day, the FCTC proposed, in response to a request from the court, that e-filing be made mandatory for attorneys filing civil and criminal cases nine months after those respective dates.)

"It doesn't mean everyone is e-filing," Cox said of the 2012 dates. "It doesn't mean that it's mandatory yet. We are moving toward that, but we're not there yet."

Overall, he reported that 41 counties can accept at least some civil e-filings. Some can accept filings in all five civil divisions, some only in one or two. Some are accepting e-filings only for new cases, while some are accepting for both new and...