Going Green with E-filing
By Tammy Carter, General Manager, and Dr. Carole Pettijohn, CaseFileXpress, LP
With all of the talk about
“green business”, it was
inevitable that law
offices would get caught up in the move
toward more environmentally friendly
practices. Law offices are massive consumers
of paper and related printing/
copying supplies. In a study done by
GreenOrder, it was estimated that the
average attorney is responsible for the use
of 800 sheets of paper each workday per
year (nearly all 100% virgin pulp) and that
the average law firm consumed about a
ton of paper per attorney for its copying
need (Makower, 2007). It has been estimated
that a half ton of paper from production
to recycling, results in the generation
of about 9 tons of carbon dioxide
(CO2)—equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.
(Disposal in a landfill results in an
additional two more tons of such emissions
per year.) The American Bar Association
(ABA) instituted the Climate Challenge
to increase awareness of the impact
that the massive amounts of paper has on
the environment. This has resulted in various
suggestions for reducing the carbon
footprint left by the legal profession. Most
of the suggestions though are still based
on the assumption that documents need to
be printed and distributed in hard copy
but one of the top ways the ABA suggests
that you can go green is to “cut out the
paper” (ABA, 2008). E-filing technologies
enable law offices to reduce the amount of
paper that needs to be printed, copied, and
distributed which in turns saves trees (and
a provides a significant saving in their
office supply budget improving their bottom
line).
E-filing technologies have come of age.
By the end of 2007, 26 states had adopted
rules allowing for e-filing and all federal
courts are expected to offer e-filing
(Matthais,2008). The State of Texas,
through TexasOnline, has been a leader in
expansion of the use of e-filing. The benefits
of e-filing have been touted as the use
of e-filing has gained acceptance. Among
the benefits most often mentioned are
convenience, timeliness, accessibility, flexibility/
accuracy, security, and cost effectiveness.
Convenience
With e-filing you can e-file from any
location as long as you have Internet access and documents to be filed. You will
receive immediate online and email confirmation
that your documents were filed
successfully. The days of fighting traffic,
finding parking, going through metal
detectors, standing in long lines, rushing
to file during business hours, and paying
parking or speeding tickets are gone.
Additionally, if you live any distance from
the courthouse, you can complete your filing
and have it filed within minutes of
completion, saving the time (and gas)
needed to file your documents.
Timeliness
Timing is everything and with e-filing, the
courthouse doesn’t need to be open to file
your documents on time. No longer are
you confined to filing during the regular
business hours of the court. In the past
attorneys living some distance from the
court had to complete the brief hours,
even days ahead to either drive or mail a
hard copy in order to meet the filing deadline.
With e-filing, the brief can be filed
with an acknowledgement from the court
within minutes of completion 24 hours a
day. This saves staff time, courier fees and
gasoline.
Accessibility
E-filing has also opened up an array of
accessibility options. Courts have started
to provide access to electronic documents
through the web. Additionally, e-filing
allows attorneys representing various parties
to have immediate access to documents
via public access or e-service
options instead of having to wait days to
receive briefs in the mail. When attorneys
elect to send and receive filed copies by eservice,
substantial paper savings can be
realized. Think about the last case where
you had five or more opposing counsel.
How much paper did you use to fax or
certify mail your motion to opposing
counsel? And how much easier it would be
to view the service documents online and
email to your litigation team instead of
making copies for everyone?
Flexibility and accuracy
With a web-based e-filing system, no special
software is needed. E-filers prepare
their documents as they would to file in person. All standard document types and
formats are accepted by the e-filing system
which converts the documents into standard
PDF files which cannot be modified
but are searchable. Court fees are calculated
accurately by the system eliminating the
guessing or court clerk interaction needed
to determine fees. And if you happen to
make a mistake, the clerk can fix it online.
You can request jury demands, citations
and process service when e-filing.
Security
With respect to the security of the e-filing
documents, state, national and industry
standards guarantee filing security. The
records cannot be altered and are filed just
as presented. Additionally, in light of the
recent disruption in service in south Texas
due to Hurricane Ike, e-filers were back in
business the Monday following the storm
since filings are kept on remote e-filing
servers and the clerk’s office can electronically
view and process e-filings from anywhere
through a secure web portal. Firms
and courts that did not participate in e-filing
and were in the evacuation zones, had to
deal with equipment loss and the loss of
paper records. In fact, in the aftermath of
Hurricane Ike, the only way to file into Harris
and Brazoria Counties was through e-filing.
Certainly e-filing is one strategy that
should be included in any disaster recovery
or business continuity plan for courts.
Cost-effectiveness
While users of e-filing recognize the value,
non-users still spend time paper filing and
wonder if e-filing is cost-effective. During
economic hard times, we need to look at
cost effective alternatives. Think about
these questions and see if you can reduce
your firm’s carbon footprint while saving
expenses. How valuable is your time? Does
your firm bill clients for your time? How
much paper does your office use? How
much does the firm pay for gas, parking,
toner, fax, FedEx, postage, certified mail,
and courier expenses? Once the savings are
considered, e-filing is very cost effective
and as the number of e-filing transactions
increase, we can expect e-filing fees to
decline. By maintaining and filing records
online, the cost of paper storage is dramatically
reduced. Courier fees are reduced or
eliminated. Organizations that have taken
advantage of the e-discovery and e-service
options have significantly reduced copying
and costs associated with distribution.
Staff time spent in line at the court filing,
tracking status and finding documents is
reduced.
Survey
In order to evaluate the anecdotal evidence
of the benefits of e-filing, an informal survey
was conducted during August and
September 2008. The survey asked current
e-filing customers to rate e-filing services
in light of the above benefits. The respondents
were asked to rate various questions
about their experience with e-filing based
on a 5 point scale, 5 equating to “strongly
agree” and 1 equating to “strongly disagree”.
Some of the questions and their
responses are as follows: When asked “I
use e-filing because it’s convenient”, the
average of all responses was 3.75 suggesting
that a majority were in strong agreement
with the statement. “I use e-filing because
it’s cost effective” was given an average rating
of 3.89 suggesting that a majority were
in agreement with the statement. Another
set of questions focused on whether e-filing
has made their job easier by specifically
targeting several presumed benefits.
When asked to rate the following job
attributes the scores were as indicated in
Table 1.
When asked a series of questions about
E-service, the results were as follows:
- My time - 3.9
- Paper usage - 4.1
- mail / courier costs - 3.8
Again, based on these results, respondents
were in agreement that when used,
e-service has saved time and money. Many
of the respondent’s free form comments
had to do with the fact that not all jurisdictions
were signed up for e-filing and
not all attorneys had signed up to receive
service electronically.
While this survey was limited in scope,
it is an indication that e-filing is rapidly
becoming one way for law offices to go
green and provide cost savings when the
total costs for filing and maintaining paper
documents is considered. Over the next
few years we should see an increase in
firms interested in reducing their carbon
footprint and providing effective business
continuity procedures turn to e-filing as
an effective strategy.
References:
American Bar Association; (2008); FYI: Going
Green; http://www.abanet.org/tech/ltrc/fyidocs/gogreen.html
Fosmire, M. Sean (2000); Who Benefits From
Electronic Filing? LLRX.com; http://www.llrx.com/extras/filing.htm.
Matthias, John T. (2008); E-Filing Expansion in
State, Local and Federal Courts 2007. NCSC
Trends.
Makower, Joel (2007). Law Firms and the
Greening of the Brief. Two Steps Forward. GreenBiz.com.
http://makower.typepad.com/joel_makower/2007/07/law-firms-and-t.html
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