April 1 is a popular day for electronic filing switch overs. The Eleventh Circuit’s transition to ECF, as of this week, is complete. As announced in February, ECF filing is required for all attorneys, though be sure to read the rules carefully because there are still many documents that need to be filed conventionally as well as electronically. As the Court explains in its ECF Guide [.pdf]:

Use of the ECF system does not modify the requirements of the circuit rules
that counsel must provide to the Court the required number of paper copies
of a brief, a petition for rehearing, or a petition for rehearing en banc,
specified in the circuit rules.

More ominously, if your case is part Electronic Records on Appeal Program, you must continue to file expanded record excerpts in conformance with the applicable General Orders and the Electronic Records on Appeal Program Components. As many appellate practitioners have pointed out, the expanded record excerpts are quite a paper burden, which makes the idea of this being an “electronic” record somewhat of a joke. But that’s an issue for another post. In the meantime, be sure to read the rules very carefully, because while attorneys now must file via ECF, you will still need to produce lots of paper copies throughout the course of an appeal in the Eleventh Circuit.

Today’s the day. By operation of Administrative Order AOSC13-7 [.pdf], eFiling through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal is mandatory for all Florida attorneys. Check out my original post on the subject for the details.

Following the trend started by the Fourth District Court of Appeal and Fifth District Court of Appeal, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal yesterday issued an administrative order [.pdf] that, effective immediately, allows parties to stipulate to enlargements of time to serve briefs, rather than seek leave of court. Importantly, the procedure does not apply to writs, expedited or emergency matters, nor adoptions, dependency or termination of parental rights cases. The parties by stipulation can agree to an aggregate of 120 days’ worth of enlargments for initial and answer briefs, and 6o days for reply briefs.

I’ve written before about how the judges on the Second District Court of Appeal have pretty thoroughly incorporated the use of iPads into their decision making process. But this week, that integration hit a higher level. A colleague reported to me that this week, one of the judges on the Second District Court of Appeal was ill for his scheduled Oral Argument panel at the Tampa courtroom, so the Judge participated from home via FaceTime on his iPad. An iPad was set up in the judge’s place on the bench, and the judge presumably used either his iPad or computer with webcam at home to have his face on the screen. My colleague reported that the judge did not have any questions during his oral argument presentation, but did ask a question remotely for one of the attorneys on another case.

This seems like an elegant solution to the problem. After all of the time the judge had no doubt put into preparing for argument, it would have been a shame to miss it, or leave the panel short. After all of the time the parties had put into preparing for this panel, it would have been a waste of both party and judicial resources to re-schedule the argument and force everyone to come back up to speed at a later date. This way, the germs stayed home, the judge didn’t have to drag himself to Tampa, and yet the show could go on.

The future is now.

In an order issued last week [GO 38 .pdf], the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit announced it will be making the switch to electronic filing effective April 1, 2013. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to register for Appellate CM/ECF before that date! Be sure to check out the Court’s guide to electronic filing, found here [.pdf].

Not only am I certified by the Florida Bar as an expert in Intellectual Property law, but now I am pleased to share that my peers have recognized me as one of Tampa’s top rated intellectual property lawyers for 2012 [.pdf]. My inclusion in the directory is based in part on my AV®Preeminent ranking by Martindale-Hubbell, as well as peer review.

Today’s the day that the Fifth District Court of Appeal’s Administrative Order allowing stipulated enlargements of time go into effect. The Fifth joins the Fourth District Court of Appeal in allowing parties to agree to an enlargement, and then sign a Notice of Enlargement informing the court of the agreement. The Notice need not be signed by both parties, though it must be agreed to by both sides. Be very careful with your calendaring — the Fifth and Fourth have different tolerance levels for the number of days that will be allowed to be extended by stipulation before requiring a motion. I wouldn’t be surprised if the other District Courts of Appeal follow suit soon to take these tedious but necessary motions off of the court’s plate.

The Florida Supreme Court’s eFiling program is now live. The first phase of Administrative Order AOSC13-7 [.pdf] went into effect at 12:01 this morning. Get your practice in now, because e-filing through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal is optional now, but it will be mandatory for all Florida attorneys starting Monday, April 1, 2013. Check out my original post on the subject for the details.

Following the trend started by the Fourth District Court of Appeal the Fifth District Court of Appeal recently decided to take motions for enlargement of time off of the plate of both the judges and court staff by issuing an administrative order [.pdf] allowing parties to instead stipulate to an agreed enlargement of time. Effective March 1, 2013, parties can agree to up to 90 days worth of enlargements for initial and answer briefs, and up to 60 days for a reply brief, by merely filing a stipulation. Notably, this is less time than the Fourth DCA allows before requiring a motion. The Court has a preferred form for the stipulation, so be sure to follow the language of the order. The procedure goes into effect starting March 1, 2013.

Enlargements beyond those deadlines will still require leave of court. And my guess would be that the Court will not be happy to see an enlargement of time motion come across its desk after 90 days.

Electronic filing in the Florida Supreme Court will be required by all attorneys by the second quarter of this year. In Administrative Order AOSC13-7 [.pdf], the Court announced that effective Wednesday, February 27, 2013, e-filing through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal will be optional for all attorneys, and starting Monday, April 1, 2013, e-Filing is mandatory for all Florida Supreme Court pleadings filed by attorneys. Documents may be submitted as a .pdf, or in Microsoft Word 97 or higher or Word Perfect formats. ¶ 5.

Cases will be considered filed on the date uploaded to the Portal. Each document should be a separate .pdf, with larger .pdfs broken down to accommodate the size limitations of the system. ¶ 7. If somehow you make a mistake in filing, attorneys are permitted to file the corrected document along with a motion requesting that the Court accept the amended filing. ¶ 12.

An attorney’s failure to follow these proceedings may result in the filing be stricken, and even the case being dismissed. ¶ 13. However, pro se litigants and non-Florida lawyers are not required or permitted to use the Portal, and must continue to file in paper format. ¶ 16. However, they are no longer required to file additional copies of the paper documents. ¶ 16.