Note from the Clerk's Office

Welcome to this edition of our newsletter. This newsletter serves to update all our e-filers on CM/ECF. It also provides tips and reminders to make your electronic filing experience a more pleasant one. Please share this with your support staff who assist you with filing in CM/ECF.

MANDATORY electronic filing in all cases is coming soon! E-filing is now MANDATORY in all criminal cases and in civil cases for firms with 20 or more attorneys! If you are not yet a registered e-filer and have not yet signed up for a training session, please do so today! You can register for training on-line at http://ors.utd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/class.pl

PDF Size Limit Increased

The court is pleased to announce that it has increased the size limit of e-filed pdf documents from 2 MB (megabytes) to 3 MB. This should ease the burden of filing attachments to motions and other documents.

There are other measures you can and should take to make it easier to e-file attachments. If, for example, you are scanning documents that will be e-filed, make certain that the resolution on your equipment is set (i) to 200 - 300 dpi, and (ii) to black and white rather than gray or color mode. (These standards are also referred to in user manuals as faxing, filing, and copying modes). Using a higher dpi or gray or color mode will (i) increase the amount of data that has to be electronically transmitted and (ii) as a result, slow the e-filing process. Gray scale or color scanning should ONLY be used if you include drawings, photos, or other graphic images in your document. Please keep in mind, if the judges print colored exhibits, they will probably be printed out in black and white.

Remember that the per-page size for normal scanned text documents should be less than 50K per page. They will exceed 100K per page only if you include color, complicated graphics, high resolution, or some other special mode. The per-page size of a document is important for several reasons:

1. The larger the document, the longer it will take to upload.

2. The larger the document, the longer it will take other parties, including the court, to download.

Proposed Documents Now Accepted in Microsoft Word

The Court is now accepting proposed orders, judgments, voir dire questions, jury instructions, and findings of fact and conclusions of law in both WordPerfect or Microsoft Word format.

The Attorney Planning Meeting Form and Proposed Scheduling Order are now available on the website in WordPerfect, Word, and PDF versions. More information is available at the court's new civil scheduling page http://www.utd.uscourts.gov/documents/ipt.html

If you are unsure what event to use to file a document, CALL the Help Desk at (801)524-3248

Criminal Helpful Hints from the Help Desk

Motions regarding custody status should be filed as Motion for Review of Detention.

Motions to modify the Order Setting Conditions of Release should be filed as Motion to Modify Conditions of Release.

The Motion for Reconsideration should not be used for either of these situations. Remember to send a copy to the judge who last dealt with detention issues for this defendant.

These should be two different docket entries:
Certificate of Compliance found under Other Documents
Statement of Discovery Policy found under Discovery Documents

If you have a document entitled "Notice of Compliance and Request for Reciprocal Discovery," docket as Certificate of Compliance and add to text "and Request for Reciprocal Discovery."

If the document is a Response to the Presentence Report and not a Position on Sentencing Factors or a Sentencing Memorandum, and if there is no objection to the presentence report, docket it as:

Response (NOT to a Motion) found under Other Documents. If there is an objection to the presentence report, docket as:

Objection to Presentence Investigative Report found under Other Documents

If the document is Position on Sentencing Factors and there are no objections to the presentence report, docket as Position on Sentencing Factors found under Other Documents

Procedure Change Regarding Petition for Writs

The "Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus ad Prosequendum" and "Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus ad Testificandum" events have been removed from CM/ECF and have been replaced with "motion" events. This change is required for internal court statistical reporting.

These documents should now be styled as a "motion" instead of a "petition." Once the attorney has confirmed a date and time for the hearing from chambers, the motion will be prepared and E-filed as "Motion for Writ of Habeas Corpus ad Prosequendum" or "Motion for Writ of Habeas Corpus ad Testificandum." After the motion is filed, the writ will be E-mailed to the judge in a word processing format. Once the judge grants the motion with a docket text order, the writ will be issued by the judge.

Remember: If all counsel are NOT E-Filers, you must include a certificate of service for ALL counsel, not just those served by mail. For an example of the language to use for this type of certificate, please view the sample certificate on our web page.

Who Should Sign the Certificate of Service?

Certificates of Service that are attached to a document that is signed by the filing attorney may be signed by support staff.

If the Certificate of Service is filed as a separate pleading it must be signed by the filing attorney pursuant to FRCivP 11.

Redacted Document Event

The Redacted Document Event can be used when you are filing a document that has been redacted for filing purposes or for making a publicly viewable version of a document that is filed under seal.

The Redacted Document event is located under Other Documents. You should add to text "entitled name of document"

Alternatively, you could use the category that you would normally file the document under and add to text "redacted."

As the Wave Turns
- (Talented Advice Columnist E(lle) Filer responds to questions submitted by perplexed users of the CM/ECF system. You can ask for advice about the joys and sorrows of electronic filing by sending an e-mail to louise_york@utd.uscourts.gov.)

Dear Elle;

I’m really having trouble finding the event for discovery documents. Where can I find under Documents related to discovery the event to use when showing the court that I have sent discovery to opposing counsel?

Signed:
Stymied by CM

Dear Stymied:

Don’t over think this. In the previous world, we all filed “certificates of service” for interrogatories, disclosures and other discovery tasks. Most discovery isn’t filed with the court. Remember DU Civ R 26-1 (b). The court accepts certificates of services of these documents, but the rule does not require that they be filed. In some cases, it is important for the court to know that a particular item has been exchanged. (For example, if the judge has ordered that an exchange occur before a set deadline in a prior ruling of the court.) In most other cases, it isn’t necessary.

So, use the more general event - the certificate of service which you will find under the reliable “service of process” category. You can text in any other detail you think is important for the court’s docket entry.

Happy Filing,
E(lle) Filer

Start filing early. Don't wait until the last minute to file!

Electronic Filing Suggestions From the District Court Clerk's Office

WHEN FILING ELECTRONICALLY, DO YOU HAVE DIFFICULTY UPLOADING ATTACHMENTS?

We have fielded numerous calls about the time required to upload large documents or documents with numerous attachments. There are two ways to address this problem:

A. REVIEW YOUR IN-HOUSE INTERNET CONNECTION:
Tests have shown that upload speed issues have to do with how a law firm is connected to the internet, not with the Court's system. Cost may constrain some firms from implementing maximum access, but access tests of Ray Quinney & Nebeker’s (RQN) system yield upload speeds for 2 MB documents in 13 - 15 seconds. At that speed, a user can upload 10 documents totaling 20 MB in as little as three minutes, discounting browse time to locate, open, verify, and name them.

HOW TO DO IT:
First, have your technical staff review your firm's upload speed. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer high download speeds but low upload speeds because most users do not upload large quantities of data. Explore with your ISP having the same speed for uploads and downloads.

Second, have your technical staff review the internal firm configuration to eliminate bottlenecks. Before documents are uploaded to the internet, they travel through your firm's system. The manner in which your internal network is structured affects your upload speed. There are ways to tweak your internal network to diminish the time it takes for data to move through it.

Third, review how your firm is connected to the internet. Instead of going through a commercial ISP, RQN has bound T-1s directly connected to the Internet through Quest. Its upload and download speeds are the same (3 mbits/second), resulting in excellent upload speed for larger documents and attachments.
Following through on these suggestions should be handled either by skilled in-house technical staff or by qualified outside experts.

B. REVIEW HOW YOUR DOCUMENTS ARE BEING CONVERTED FOR ELECTRONIC FILING:
Bear in mind that how you prepare and convert your documents for electronic filing will have an effect on how quickly they can be uploaded. As a rule, scanned documents take considerably longer than documents that are converted directly from word-processing to PDF. In addition, documents scanned in color or gray scale format can take much longer than those scanned in black and white format.

HOW TO DO IT:
First, whenever possible, convert documents you create using MS Word or WordPerfect directly to PDF format instead of printing and scanning them.
Second, if you must scan a document, ensure that the setting is for black/white rather than color or grey scale. Scanning in color or gray scale substantially increases the size of the electronic document.