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.