Electronic filing is currently a hot topic in the legal profession. With the increased caseloads brought to the courts, the judiciary is looking for innovative ways to increase efficiency without increasing staff. Electronic filing offers the judicial system an alternative to a paper-based system. While this research White Paper does not focus on electronic filing, the future for electronic public access becomes brighter for courts using electronic filing. 

Electronic filing removes part of the “paper” in the court filing process. Cases are filed using an electronic form and documents are transmitted to the court by the filing party. Any paper documents are imaged and stored on the court’s system and the actual document is stored in the case file. Because there is little, if any, human interaction, the information is entered into the computer system once, including logging of the case and documents, making the process more efficient and less time consuming. Digital certificates provide a method of authentication and originality. 

Since the case is electronically input into the court record system, it then becomes immediately available to the public. The capability of electronic notification of case filings via electronic mail is also currently available.