Mandatory e-filing coming to 12 more counties by Dec. 1

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Mandatory e-filing is continuing to roll across the state.

Come Dec. 1, 20 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties will be requiring lawyers to file court documents electronically.

Seven counties have already taken that step and will be followed, on Sept. 1, by Barron, Dunn and Chippewa counties. Then will come Florence and La Crosse counties, where the requirements are to take effect on Sept. 15.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court gave an initial approval to mandatory e-filing in February. Since then, the requirements have been rolled out gradually — applying initially not just to certain places but also only certain types of documents. For now, for instance, electronic filing is mandatory only for paperwork filed in civil, small claims, paternity and family cases.

The goal is to require all case types to be filed electronically by the end of 2019.

Jean Bousquet, chief information officer for the state courts, said lawyers not already working in counties where e-filing has become mandatory should prepare for the changes by trying the new system out voluntarily.

Proponents of e-filing cite several advantages.

The system, for one, enables all the parties in a case to simultaneously view documents that have been electronically filed. Also, it eliminates the need to make repeat trips to a courthouse to file documents and hound a party who has already been served with initial pleadings.

E-filing shouldn’t be much of a leap for lawyers who do federal appellate work, Bousquet said. Federal courts already require e-filing through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system, also known as PACER, which is similar to the online system used by state circuit courts.

As firms try to prepare for the coming requirements, Bousquet is suggesting that they assign one person in the office to be the e-filing expert. Taking this step will ensure they always have someone on hand who can be trusted to keep them in compliance.

Just as lawyers who work in places where e-filing remains voluntary can still try the system without risk of serious consequences, criminal lawyers can similarly benefit from the fact that the requirements do not yet apply to the types of cases they routinely deal with.

Hoping to get in some practice before being required to come into compliance, many district attorneys are using the advent of mandatory electronic filing for non-criminal cases in their counties as an opportunity to have their offices hooked up to the state’s e-filing system.

Take Dodge County as an example. The district attorney’s office there went paperless in 2009, making it the first in the state to do so.

The change back then gave criminal-defense attorneys a chance to try out e-filing years in advance of its becoming mandatory, said Bob Barrington, the district attorney office’s managing attorney.

“What happens is that you do find once they try it they like it, and they’re going to want it in all case types,” he said.

Barrington said the key to mastering e-filing is to avoid panicking when you don’t know what to do with an electronic document.

Always remember, he said, that it’s not the documents themselves that are changing; it’s how the documents make their way to the courthouse. The best advice, he said, is to start with what you know.

“When you’re stumped and don’t know what to do with electronic document, just say to yourself, ‘What would I do if this were paper? OK, how can I do the same thing with my computer?’” he said. “Maybe it sounds corny, but that’s how it works.”