FLORIDA :THE TERM "COURT PAPERS" MAY SOON BE OBSOLETE

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FLORIDA :THE TERM "COURT PAPERS" MAY SOON BE OBSOLETE

Lawyers May End Attachment to Paper, Turn to Attachments ,One of the last holdouts for doing business on actual paper, the legal profession, is trying to go digital.
Tallahassee, FL – The term “court papers” may soon be obsolete.One of the last holdouts for doing business on actual paper, the legal profession, is trying to go digital.Next week, the Florida Supreme Court will consider a change in the rules that govern how lawyers have operated for more than a century, taking up a proposal to let lawyers, courts and clerks exchange legal documents, such as pleadings and orders, by email instead of sending them through the postal system or hand delivering them.“Most businesses and professions have long since converted their record-keeping systems to some data management service that utilizes digitalized data rather than archived paper records,” a Florida Bar rules committee wrote in a brief for the proposed rule change that will be taken up next week by the Supreme Court. “Unfortunately, for various reasons, the courts and many lawyers have not yet been able to make that change.”Simple ease – and joining the current century – are among the reasons for the proposed change. Most lawyers deal comfortably with email and digital documents in many parts of their work and personal lives. But when it comes to filing a pleading, they do it the old fashioned way.But there’s also a financial consideration. According to the Florida Bar’s rules panel, it’s not quite clear how many pieces of paper are filed and stored throughout the court system statewide. But it is well in excess of 1 million pages a year, and, the Bar committee says, may actually be over 2 million pages a year.“If these millions of pieces of paper were eliminated and transmitted as electronic documents, the savings in terms of paper, ink, toner, postage, envelopes, and labor is incalculable,” the Bar’s rules panel posited. “The corresponding reduction in demands for paper and the destruction of trees is a secondary benefit that is of no small moment.”For those in the business world, where paper communication is less and less common (when was the last time you sent a fax?), it may seem strange to think about, but the change really would be momentous, the Bar committee said.The changes, “if accepted by this Court, will be the first significant comprehensive change in the manner in which law is practiced in Florida in well over a century,” the panel said in the brief, which is available electronically on the court’s website, but presumably had to be delivered to the court on paper.

Not everyone thinks the change is needed.
Lawyer Charles Ray of Port St. Lucie, in a comment filed with the court, said he simply likes to work in paper.“I prefer to read a printed page over a computer screen, often I print a page sent to me digitally using a printer which seems to be awfully inefficient,” Ray wrote. “In connection with multiple defendants, if one person printed copies for all and just distributed them by mail it would be less labor intensive as opposed to having each office print out a copy of what has been filed.”

Ray also said finding a place to put all that paper isn’t really a big deal.
“I have stored documents for thirty plus years in connection with my practice,” Ray wrote. “This is not a great burden.”Attorney Kurt E. Lee of Sarasota raised security and reliability concerns. Crucial emails to defendants in cases could get ensnared in spam filters or junk folders, causing someone to miss a court date. And some emails seem to just disappear.“I would respectfully note that I can count on one hand how many times mail has been lost, but I would need to use both hands and take off my shoes to start counting how many times emails have been lost,” Lee wrote. He also raised security concerns about emails.

Another attorney, Lynn Rhodes of Bartow, who primarily represents indigent clients, said not all attorneys have unlimited resources.“I do not have a laptop,” noted Rhodes. Even if she did, though, Rhodes said her clients still need paper.“I do not think it would be easy or convenient to keep my client informed by having him look over my shoulder at the documents, and my client, having been found to be indigent, certainly does not have a computer or access to the internet,” Rhodes continued. “I have to print out and send copies of emailed documents to my clients, to keep them informed of the status of their cases. All this without being reimbursed for such expenses.”

The committees that drafted the proposed new rule generally dismissed the concerns.
“The committees believe none of those concerns, when viewed in perspective after the two years of intensive work invested in developing this proposed rule, provides a basis to vary from the rules as proposed,” the Bar panel said in a response filed with the court. “The package of proposals previously forwarded to this Court ought to be implemented with as little delay as possible.”One general exception to the proposed rule would allow those people who are representing themselves without a lawyer, to remain able to mail paper pleadings to the courts.

The proposal is being put forth by all of the rules committees of the Florida Bar, because it would affect the court system as a whole.The change is also looked at as a precursor to the day when the whole court system goes digital, and all documents are filed directly by electronic means. The federal court system is already largely electronic.The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the proposed rule, Rule 2.516, on Wednesday

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June 21, 2011 at 9:49 AM