|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Welcome!
 | | Bob Inzer, Clerk |
The Leon County Clerk News was created to provide you with the information and tools you need to stay current with the changes in the clerks' offices statewide, but my office in particular. The entire State of Florida's legal community is moving from a paper world to an electronic one. This presents great opportunities for improving efficiencies, but will also change how we do business. Our goal remains to continue to provide you with the highest level of service and do that in the most efficient way possible.
We will do our best to keep you abreast of the changes before they occur and provide you the information and training to assist in the transition. |
|
|
Top 10 Helpful Hints Concerning E-Filing in Leon County
- Unknown parties such as an unknown tenant or unknown spouse should be listed on the "Organization" line on the Add/Edit Party screen, and should not be listed as the first party on a case.
- Cover letters should not be submitted.
- Follow Rule 2.425 to minimize confidential information that is contained in your filings. If confidential information is included in a filing, follow Rule 2.420 to insure proper treatment of this information.
- Original documents may be filed electronically and on paper; if both are filed, both will appear in the case file. Remember that my deputy clerks cannot provide legal advice so they cannot tell you whether or not an original is required. Instead, follow these legal authorities:
- Florida Supreme Court Standards for Electronic Access to the Courts, Version 8 ( Adopted June 2009, Adopted Modifications January 2013, page 16)
- SC11-399, revised on 10/18/12
- Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.030(c): Deposit with the Clerk. Any paper document that is a judgment and sentence or required by statute or rule to be sworn to or notarized shall be filed and deposited with the clerk immediately thereafter. The clerk shall maintain deposited original paper documents in accordance with Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.430, unless otherwise ordered by the court.
- Fla. Prob. R. 5.043: Notwithstanding any rule to the contrary, and unless the court
orders otherwise, any original executed will or codicil deposited with the court must be retained by the clerk in its original form and must not be destroyed or disposed of by the clerk for 20 years after submission regardless of whether the will or codicil has been permanently recorded as defined by Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.430.
- Proposed orders should be sent to our office, as noted in local Administrative Order 1996-01. Our office will pull the files and send the orders to the judges.
- Summons may be submitted on the portal; each should be submitted separately so that the statutory $10 issuance charge is assessed. Our office will issue the summons and attach it to a progress docket entry on the judicial website for printing; one paper-issued copy will be placed in pickup boxes for local attorneys or mailed to out-of-town attorneys who provide envelopes and postage.
- Clerk-issued defaults and garnishments, and notices of action, are handled like summons above. Attorneys will fill in the publication name and date on the notice of action form.
- Costs and fees must be paid on the portal for documents to be efiled. Leon County's reopen and number-of-defendants-over-5 fees are not loaded and our office will invoice filers for these fees as applicable.
- To view your filings, go to http://judicial.clerk.leon.fl.us. Keep in mind that, under current clerk performance standards, our office has up to 48 hours after a document is received to docket it to a case.
- Our website has a number of helpful efiling references. So does the Florida Efiling Authority site. Finally, once you have logged on to the portal and selected Leon as your efiling county, you will see these and other helpful hints in the news pane at the top of the page.
|
We Want to Help You with E-Service
We have in our database hundreds of e-mail addresses. We know that as we move forward attorneys are much more likely to be communicating by e-mail than regular mail. We mentioned in our August 12, 2012, newsletter that we have provided an opportunity for attorneys to update their personal information, including e-mail addresses, on our judicial website.
As we migrate from paper to electronic, filling out a paper form seems antiquated. In lieu of requiring a form that then has to be entered, providing another opportunity for error, we think requiring attorneys to keep their profile up-to-date on the judicial website is better.
In the future, attorneys will more and more be living on our judicial website as they do their own case management. Editing their own information seems to be the easiest and most efficient solution.
Remember to Update as Your Information Changes
|
 What's New on the Portal?
The Florida Courts E-Filing Authority has posted on the User Forum section of its website a list of enhancements and changes recently deployed to the portal. We think you will be particularly interested in reading about the changes below. If you're interested in seeing what's in the entire document, click on the bookmarks tab/icon along the left side of your screen after you open the document. You'll be able to see at a glance what each change involves.
Civil Cover Sheet Automated (pages 1-13): You no longer have to submit a separate document to file the civil cover sheet. You will notice now on the portal, when you file a new case, that as you complete information on each tab and then click Next or move on to the next tab, the screen grays out and a message appears: Updating Civil Cover Sheet, Please Wait. The portal now prepares the civil cover sheet for you! As a result, we have removed the requirement on all new case filings for you to file this sheet separately so there are no duplicate filings of the civil cover sheet. When you click Submit to transmit your new case to our office, the portal will submit a civil cover sheet for you, based on the information you entered on the portal.
Fee Waiver Menu Added (pages 31-36): In the Fee Waiver section of the Payments tab, there is now a drop-down menu for e-filers to select the reason for a waiver request: (1) Indigence, which requires attachment of an Application for Determination of Civil Indigence form on this tab and not on the Documents tab; or (2) Exempt under FS 28.345, which requires no attachment and covers the agencies listed in the statute. Our office will review the waiver reason selected and approve or deny the request.
News Pane Expanded (pages 42-48): There is now an expanded news pane at the top of each clerk's e-filing page so that e-filers can conveniently locate the practices of each county pertaining to items such as summons issuance and proposed orders.
New Copy Buttons: Finally, you may have noticed a new button on the Add/Edit Party popup screen when you add new parties to a new or existing case; right under the ID State/License field, you will see Copy from Current Filer. If you use this button, the attorney name and all information in the fields below will pull from the person who signed into the portal. In Leon County, use this button ONLY if the person logged into the portal is in fact a primary party (plaintiff, petitioner, respondent, defendant, etc.) to the case. Otherwise, do not use this button for the below reasons:
- Filers who have used this button reported that they wanted to use all information but change the attorney name to the party name so the party name was correct but reflected the attorney's address information. However, when they "wiped" the attorney's name out and added the party name, the information still came down to our office bearing only the e-filer's name. This means that, if the e-filer clicked Petitioner, Primary Party, and Filed on Behalf of, then the e-filer has now been added as a party to the case in our case maintenance application. If this happened, you must notify our office so that we can correct it.
- Filers should always enter the address for the party and NOT use the attorney's address. Using the attorney's address prohibits our automated processes from working properly to match and not duplicate identities. Further, if the attorney withdraws from a case and our office has no address for the party, all mail will continue to be sent to the attorney.
|
|
Anyone can now follow the latest news from the Florida Courts E-Filing Authority and the E-Filing Portal on Twitter (https://twitter.com/FLCourtsEFiling). Be sure to watch for updates and other important news as it occurs. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
