Major changes behind-the-scenes in E-Filing.

In late November, The Indiana Office of Court Technology (IOCT) will be releasing a new version of the E-Filing Manager (EFM) used by E-Filing Service Providers (EFSPs). 

That's way too many acronyms packed into one sentence! However, this is important for you, so let's take a moment to unpack them:

An EFSP is the part of the E-Filing system that filers use to submit pleadings to the court. Doxpop is one example of an EFSP, and others can be found on this page: https://www.in.gov/courts/efiling/providers/. 

In brief, the role of an EFSP is to guide you through the process of assembling the documents you want to file with a court into an Envelope for submission. In addition to uploading documents, the EFSP also gathers the necessary information to create a case for an initial filing, or add attorneys and provide e-service in subsequent filings. 

In our opinion, the technology is important, but the key part of that acronym is "Service Provider". A good EFSP supports your work.

The EFM is the system that the EFSP hands your Envelope off to after we've made sure it meets all of the requirements for filing. The EFM is the part of the E-Filing system that routes your envelope to the correct court office and then allows the clerk or court staff to review and accept the envelope as a filing. This is the step where a file stamp is applied to the documents and they become available to the court. On the Court side, that means they are now in the Court's Case Management System (CMS), which you may also know as "Odyssey", or in some situations, Quest. Think of the EFM as the central hub and routing agent of the E-Filing system. Every filing goes through this hub.

For about ten years, the Indiana Courts have used an EFM supplied by Tyler Technologies, the same company that provides the Odyssey CMS. As time went on, the IOCT saw opportunities for improvements that better fit the business processes in Indiana Courts. Due to this, the IOCT has been writing their own EFM, and is planning on releasing it in November.

This is a really big deal for Doxpop, because it means we are having to re-write all of the code that connects our system to the State. We fully intend to do such a great job of that re-write that you don't even notice the switchover. However, because the EFM is so central to everything we do, we're giving you the heads-up about the change well ahead of time. This coding will require time on our end, but there is no reason to expect any interruption in services for our users. Our team is actively working on ongoing issues in addition to this project. Information regarding these issues will be addressed in a blog post in the near future.

We're not perfect, and the IOCT is not perfect, so there may be a few bumps in the road as we make this transition in late November.

We'll follow this post up with a few status reports between now and November, and as the cutover date nears, we'll let you know exactly what to expect.

 

Beware of malicious emails masquerading as messages from the Indiana Courts via GovDelivery.

We received the following notice from the Indiana Supreme Court today, and are reposting it here to make sure all of our customers see it:

We are aware of a malicious email and/or text message being circulated from Indiana state agency GovDelivery accounts, including the Indiana Courts account. We no longer use GovDelivery to send email and texts. The message contains a hyperlink that is malicious in nature; do not click it.

The Indiana Office of Technology is also aware of the issue. Phishing, spoofing, and other forms of electronic crime are common and require us to remain vigilant. Get more information from FBI.gov.

To reiterate the most important part of the message above, if you receive any messages from "GovDelivery" purporting to be from the Indiana Courts or any other Indiana State office, Do not click on any links in those messages or open any attachments. 

Addressing Issues with Submitting Documents

Occasionally when submitting a new case or subsequent filing on an existing case, you may run into the issue that the lead document, and more often attachments, are in a format that the courts can not or will not accept, causing your filing to be rejected. These rejections often provide little to no information as to why the document may have been rejected or failed.

Though there can be a number of things that could cause this, one of the more common issues we run into, is the formatting of the documents. The Indiana Court System is a bit particular in regards to what type of documents it will accept: 

* 50MB is the size limit of any individual document.

* 75MB is the total size allowed for the entire envelope.

* The maximum number of pages can not exceed 250 pages for Appellate courts in the state of Indiana.

* Some fonts are not acceptable within the PDF document. (See examples below.)

Since getting a filing rejected may seem a bit arbitrary, and often the rejection message can lack the exact cause of it not being accepted, we wanted to provide a few points and tips to make this process go smoothly, at least in relation to the documents and attachments that you include in your filings.

#1 A good general rule of thumb is: If you (the submitter) did not create the lead or supporting documents in your filing, then you'll likely benefit from using a “Print to PDF function” to recreate the document(s) before submitting them. This process will often increase the size of the document, but helps by rendering unusual fonts as an image.

This is easily done by selecting the document(s), choosing the “print” option that should be available in the PDF viewing software you are using or familiar with, but instead of printing to a printer, use the drop down to select “Print to PDF”. This will create a “copy” of the original document, which you can then attach to your filing. Doing this will often fix any potential issues with the actual document, especially if you have run into the rejection wall, but are not sure why.

In general, this technique is used for attachments, since those are documents created by others, and hence must be rendered exactly, even if they include fonts unacceptable to the courts. On the other hand, lead documents will almost always be your own work, so in that case, you should just use the correct fonts (see below.) This technique can be used to fix up depositions that are created by specialized software using unusual fonts. 

#2 The Indiana Court System will only accept certain fonts in submitted documents. If  your document(s) do not use one of the fonts listed below, your documents may not be accepted:

Arial

Baskerville

Book Antiqua

Bookman

Bookman Old Style

Century

Century Schoolbook

Calisto MT

CG Times

Garamond

Georgia

New Baskerville

New Century Schoolbook

Palatino

Times New Roman

#3 Lastly, the Indiana Court System has published an E-filing guide which can be very helpful in ensuring your filings will be accepted. The E-Filing Guide provides a detailed explanation of the types and formats of documents that are allowed (and prohibited) to be submitted.  Please see pages 21 - 24 at the link below:

https://www.in.gov/courts/files/efiling-user-guide.pdf

The guide also provides instructions, if you need to submit something to the court that cannot be converted to PDF format.

Amended local rules recently approved by the Indiana Supreme Court.

The local Rules for Clark, Delaware, Johnson and Hancock County Courts have been amended. 

Local attorneys are probably aware of these, but if you're an out-of-county attorney who only files into these counties periodically, it's  worth knowing that they've changed. Note that the links below include only the amendments, not the entire local set of rules, so each is a quick read to keep you up do date.

25S-MS-10

Order Approving Amended Local Rules for Clark County

25S-MS-11
Order Approving Amended Local Rules for Delaware County

25S-MS-4
Order Approving Amended Local Rules for Johnson County

25S-MS-8
Order Approving Amended Local Rule for Hancock County

Update on EFM slowness and instability issues. Tuesday, 8/16.

Early this morning, Tyler Technologies (the State's E-Filing vendor) released a new version of their EFM*. 

This release included new logging tools that they hope will allow them to diagnose the slowdown that occurred during the last EFM upgrade on July 22nd.

Unfortunately, this current upgrade has, so far, proved to be both slower and less stable than previous verions. That is disappointing. For now, we are urging patience while Tyler works to solve the problems with this latest upgrade. They are fully aware that it's a mess and are actively working to resolve the new instability issues.

As I'm writing this post, the EFM is down, with no ETA for a fix. We hope they'll get it fixed up before the end of the day, but if you miss a filing deadline due to this instability, please refer to our previous post on how Indiana's trial rules protect you in that situation.

This is frustrating. We are now approaching one month with the EFM running at roughly 1/3 of its previous speed, and know the situation is hard on you as well. We continue to cooperate with the State and Tyler to provide the information they need for diagnosis. We also remain committed to pursuing this until it gets fixed. 

* EFM = E-Filing Manager, the system through which all filings are routed to destination courts.

Friday update on the E-Filing slowness issue.

Yesterday, (8/4) we participated in a discussion of this problem with the State's EFM* vendor (Tyler Technologies.) A few important notes from that meeting:

1) The network routing and latency issues that we had hoped might provide an explanation have been eliminated as a cause.

2) The slow response time is affecting all Indiana filers, regardless of their EFSP**.

3) More diagnostic information is needed, so early next week, Tyler will be deploying a version of the EFM that logs more information in support of the diagnostic effort.

4) The result of #3 is that we know this won't be fixed in a matter of days. It will be at least a week while the new logging software is deployed. (*sigh*)

We came away from this meeting frustrated, but with the understanding that Tyler is working diligently on this problem. They are fully aware of the pain it is causing filers, particularly those of you who submit high volumes of filings where response time is critical. We will continue to support them in their efforts by providing regular feedback from our own logging system.

* EFM = E-Filing Manager, the system through which all filings are routed to destination courts.

** EFSPs = E-Filing Service Providers, The web sites used by filers to compose and submit filing envelopes.

Tuesday update on slowness issues. Still making small incremental gains. Current hypothesis: Network routing may play a role.

 Over the weekend, Tyler Technologies shut down their system briefly to do some performance tuning on the EFM API. Now that we've got a full day of logs to examine since the most recent change, we can report that there has been a 16% decrease in the average response time compared to last Monday.😊

That's good news, and worth celebrating, but that's still over 3 times the average response time prior to their cloud migration, so this is still a top priority for us.

We've been a bit frustrated by the fact that it was a change to someone else's system that caused this. That means we're in the awkward position of just measuring slow response times and complaining instead of being able to contribute to a solution. However, one of our operations folks pointed out that network latency is something we can assess from our side of the connection, so we've been doing that and are finding some definite problems that we can use to start some diagnosis from our side of the connection. We're working that angle now, and have passed along our findings to Tyler in the hope that it will help.

Weekend update on the slowness issue- Marginal gains on Friday.

We are still not seeing anything like a return to the original performance for the E-Filing Manager API.

Some changes were made by the State's vendor early Friday afternoon that appeared to result in a small improvement, but it's hard to tell for sure because Friday afternoon is a time when our load is usually lighter than the rest of the week.

We're hoping the small gain is still discernable on Monday. However, even if this gain is solid, we acknowledge that it was small and we are not even close to calling the issue resolved. There's still far to go.

Thursday Morning update on performance issues. Bottom line: No noticeable improvements.

Early this morning (Thursday, 7/28) Tyler Technologies took the State's E-Filing Manager (EFM) off-line to do some performance tuning. We have been watching closely this morning, and as of 9AM, it looks like no improvement resulted from this work. (sigh.)

We'll be reporting these results to Tyler Technologies shortly so they can get to work on next steps.

Note that at 9AM, our sample size is fairly small, so our conclusions may be adjusted as the day unfolds, but so far, we're calling this round of tuning ineffective.

E-filing will be offline at Midnight while Tyler Technologies works on performance tuning.

We have been notified that Indiana's E-Filing Manager (EFM) will be offline for roughly one hour starting at midnight tonight (7/27/22).

That's good to hear, because as you doubtless know, the recent migration of the EFM's servers to the cloud went very poorly, and we've all been struggling with an extremely slow system this week.

Given the results of previous tries at performance tuning, we're not going to do the happy-dance yet, but we're hopeful and will wait to see what the morning brings.

If you'd like more background on this saga, take a look at our previous three posts on this topic.

Update on slowness isues with the EFM as of 1PM Tuesday, 7/26

For what has transpired up to this point, take a look at our post from last night about what caused this issue.

Here's the new information from today:

Yesterday, the State's EFM was running so slowly that it was effectively unusable. We estimate that the EFM was taking 17 times as long as usual to respond to the EFSPs such as Doxpop.

Today, it started off looking good, but a little slow. However, as of Noon today, our estimate is that the EFM is still taking 7 times as log to respond as prior to the cloud upgrade.

We have passed this information along to Tyler Technologies along with an urgent request to essentially double whatever change they made last night. That change got them halfway to the goal, so we expect it should not be hard to travel the rest of the way.

We share your frustration with this extended problem. Please know that we're doing everything we can, and at this point we're waiting on the folks at Tyler to respond.

The E-Filing outage on Friday and Monday- What happened?

 To understand this explanation, you need to know that there are two distinct sections of the E-Filing system in Indiana:

1) The section you interact with as a filer is called an E-Filing Service Provider (EFSP). The largest EFSPs in Indiana are the Tyler system, the Indiana Prosecutors' CMS, The Public Defenders' CMS and Doxpop. We provide the part of the system you interact with to get your work done.

2) Behind the scenes, all of the EFSPs connect to a single E-Filing Manager (EFM). The EFM takes the filing information that the EFSPs assemble into envelopes and write that information to the Odyssey system used by the courts. Tyler Technologies operates Indiana's EFM.

So in our case, the primary flow of data is Doxpop > EFM > Courts.

On Thursday evening, Tyler migrated Indiana's EFM to a cloud-based server. It didn't go smoothly. The result was a nearly complete outage lasting from Thursday night through the close of business on Monday. During this time, the EFM was extremely slow- Slow enough that it was essentially unusable. 

On Friday, all EFSPs were affected. Over the weekend, Tyler managed to get the connection to their EFSP working well. However, the interface used by the Prosecutors, Public Defenders, Doxpop, and other smaller EFSPs was still unusable on Monday. Doxpop reported this early Monday morning, and provided Tyler with all of the information we had available.

At 9:50 PM on Monday, Tyler reported that they completely fixed the interface used by the EFSPs, including Doxpop, that were affected on Monday. We'll be monitoring the system closely on Tuesday morning to confirm this, and ask that our users quickly report any issues they run into so we can let Tyler know if the fix applied Monday evening did the job.

Thanks to all of our users for your extraordinary patience and kindness during Friday and Monday. We were having two very bad days, but you made it a lot better by being so understanding!

Similarly, although it's tempting to point fingers, we really can't complain about the team at Tyler. Upgrades of this magnitude are no fun for anyone. They were having a very bad day too, but Tyler stuck with it until all of the issues were resolved. We appreciate that their technicians were hard at work well into the evening tonight.

Did this outage cause you to miss any filing deadlines?  If so, please read our previous blog post, which explains how the trial rules address this situation.

Did the e-file outage on Friday through Monday cause you to miss a deadline?

On Friday, July 22nd, we noticed an increasing issue with slow or completely unresponsive response times being returned by the State's E-Filing Manager, which is the central system that routes E-Filing submissions to each court. 

Doxpop promptly reported the issue to the State's vendor for this system, and received confirmation they were "aware of an issue which is affecting filings in IN Prod and are currently investigating".

As of 5PM, this problem was still not resolved, and the State's vendor indicated that they would continue working on the problem into the weekend.

If these issues caused you to miss a deadline, please note that Trial Rule 87(J)(1)(c), essentially provides for a one-day extension when a lengthy e-filing system outage or issue prevents filers from meeting a deadline.

We expect that the Trial Courts will all be aware of the scope and timing of this outage via direct communication from Trial Court Technology. However, if the court you are working with requires an affidavit from Doxpop to attach as an exhibit to the motion described in TR 86(J)(1)(c), please let us know and we'll be happy to supply documentation in support of your motion. (Simply attaching a screen print of this blog post may be sufficient.)

On the appellate side, take a look at Rule 68(M)(1)(d), which appears to be nearly identical to the Trial Court rule on this topic.

A bug in the Clerk's Review Module is causing some documents to appear rotated. (It's not your fault!)

 A couple of Doxpop E-Filers have reported that the documents they uploaded appear to be rotated 90 degrees when the clerk reviews them. One person had their filing rejected because of this. This happens most frequently to people who scan their documents rather than saving to PDF directly from their word processor

Doxpop's support team investigated and learned that a recently released "upgrade" to the Clerk's Review Module has a bug that causes documents that are actually oriented correctly to display badly in the Clerk's office. The bottom line is that your documents are fine, and the problem is with software on the receiving end of the system.

If a clerk or court rejects your filing as "illegible" because it is displayed sideways, please refer them to Indiana Trial Court Technology. TCT is the group that provides technical support to the clerks and they will confirm that there's no problem with your documents and they should be accepted.

 

Make sure you are getting all that important email. Take two.

Recently the state e-filing manager changed the email domain from which they send e-filing emails. This has caused a significant increase in calls to Doxpop about missing emails so we wanted to revisit a topic we've previously posted about. Below is an updated posting of our guidance on what we think you should take to ensure you, and anyone else at your firm, are receiving all the e-filing and court-related emails you should expect.

We strongly recommend that if you are not the person that manages your firm email, you forward this information to that department or person. 

-- 

In the context of e-filing, it has become especially important that your email from the court makes it through unfettered and in a timely fashion. Here are some tips on how to make that happen:

First, make sure you control the filtering. Some Internet Service Providers "helpfully" remove those messages that they deem to be spam before it even gets to your email client. You should view this practice with caution because it means you aren't in direct control of where your mail ends up.

We also know a number of our users utilize auto-forwarding rules to send some e-filing or court emails to other people in their firm. If that is the case, you should periodically review those rules to make sure they are current. We know some have set them based on the sender domain and since the e-file manager recently updated that domain those rules could be broken. Also, if you use the subject line, this has been known to be updated over time and that could also break the rules set.  

Second, recognize that there are several types of email to make sure you don't classify as spam:

• Notification of Electronic Filing: Emails confirming you submitted an envelope and when that envelope was submitted. These always come back to the filer only (not necessarily the attorney).
• Notification of Acceptance/Rejection: Emails acknowledging acceptance or rejection of the submitted envelope. These always come back to the filer only (not necessarily the attorney).
• Notification of Service: These go to an attorney's service contact attached to the case, which may mean that administrative copies are being sent to an assistant as well as the attorney.
• Administrative Copy of Service: These are copies sent by the e-file system of the service email sent to an attorney to other people listed based on the service contact set-up. 
• Notices of Orders & Judgments: These aren't really part of e-filing, but are equally important. This is how most courts deliver documents signed by the judge to you. These always go to a single email address.
• Doxpop Notifications: If you are a Doxpop subscriber, you may also have configured our service to send you notifications of changes in specific cases or more broadly, notification of any change to your hearing schedule.

Third, configure your email client to never flag emails as spam if they come from any of the known court domains or addresses. This is called "whitelisting." and can be performed by the user if you have an email address not managed by a system administrator or you may need to forward this information to your system administrator 

Below are the senders you should whitelist. This list is current as of 8/6/21 and we'll update this as new services or counties are added:

Here's the list of domains that you should always accept email from:

• doxpop.com
• efilingmail.tylertech.cloud
• tylerhost.cloud
• tylerhost.net
• tylertech.com
• courts.in.gov

If you have any questions please give support a call at 866-369-7671 or support@doxpop.com

State e-file manager updates their sending email address. Here's what you need to know:

We recently learned that the state e-file manager has updated the sending email address for the e-filing emails. The e-file system sending email address was previously 'efilingmail@tylerhost.net' and has been updated to 'no-reply@efilingmail.tylertech.cloud'. 

Generally, this won't affect how you file but you may want to check a few things.

Email sorting: 

If you utilize rules or labels in your inbox, you'll want to check if they look at the sender's email and then update those rules if needed. 

Email forwarding:

We know some of our users use auto email forwarding to send e-file emails to other people in their firm. You'll want to check if those rules look at the sender's email address and update those if needed. 

Email whitelisting:

We've long communicated the importance of making sure your firm's email system has certain domains whitelisted to ensure you don't miss these important emails by spam protection services. On that list, you will now want to make sure your email system includes the 'efilingmail.tylertech.cloud' domain. 

If you have any questions please feel free to give us a call at 866-369-7671

Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, and USPS Address Verification now available with Delivery by Doxpop!

Doxpop's mail and sheriff's service feature, Delivery by Doxpop, is quickly becoming a favorite among our users and we're committed to making the feature even better with the addition of USPS Priority and Priority Express mail as well as USPS address validation!

Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express are perfect for those times when certified mail isn’t necessary but you'd still like the ability to track and verify the delivery of your package. Priority Mail services have several benefits:

• Provides tracking, often at less cost than certified mail.
• Provides a faster delivery window compared to first-class mail.
• Accommodates larger packages, allowing up to 2,498 pages.
• And yes, you can also send sheriff's service packets via priority mail giving you tracking and the ability for much larger filings, up to 828 pages, to be sent.
• If you need a signed return receipt for proof of service, that can be added so you get the equivalent of certified mail, but fast.

USPS Address Validation allows you to validate the mailing address you're sending service to with the USPS address database. This allows more reliable (faster) routing of your mail through the postal system and ensures your mailing meets the requirements for guaranteed delivery time via the priority USPS services. Scroll down to find some quick tips on these new features. Not already familiar with our Delivery by Doxpop features? Take a look at our previous posts about the service and how it can help your firm at the links below:

Delivery by Doxpop makes service as easy as it used to be.

Delivery by Doxpop: FAQ 

As always, we want your feedback! So if you have any comments or questions please don't hesitate to give us a call at 866-369-7671 or email us at support@doxpop.com

What you need to know to mail Priority Mail services:

When you select the Delivery by Doxpop option for a case party, you will now see Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express in the available options. If you select Priority Mail the available options will open and then you can select between having delivery confirmation or signature confirmation.

The USPS does require a validated address for all Priority Mail services so the address will automatically be placed in an editable state. Take a moment to verify the address is correct, and the most complete address you have. Then click the [Validate Mailing Address] button to run address validation. A pop-up will appear displaying the original address alongside the version of that address the USPS has in their database. Simply click the [Use USPS Address] button to update the address and get your green checkmark.

 

Using USPS Address Validation for other mailing types:

Since address validation is currently not required by the USPS on first-class or certified mail, we don’t require that you use the validation tool on those mailings. However, we still make it available for you and encourage you to use it to prevent delivery delays. If you select a service where it is not required you can access the tool by clicking on the pencil icon to edit the address. Then the [Validate Mailing Address] button will appear and you can use it to verify the mailing address.

Did the intermittent e-file outage on Monday cause you to miss a deadline?

Beginning at roughly 10:10 AM on Monday, February 1st, we started to receive reports and noticed an increasing number of unexpected errors being returned by the State's E-Filing Manager, which is the central system that routes E-Filing submissions to each court. 

Doxpop promptly reported the issue to the State's vendor for this system, and  received confirmation they were "experiencing intermittent issues with filing submissions". We were notified at approximately 3:45 PM that they had resolved the issue and filings should be going through as normal. However, we have continued to see occasional problems.  

If these issues caused you to miss a deadline, please note that Trial Rule 87(J)(1)(c), essentially provides for a one-day extension when a lengthy e-filing system outage or issue prevents filers from meeting a deadline.

We expect that the Trial Courts will all be aware of the scope and timing of this outage via direct communication from Trial Court Technology. However, if the court you are working with requires an affidavit from Doxpop to attach as an exhibit to the motion described in TR 86(J)(1)(c), please let us know and we'll be happy to supply documentation in support of your motion. (Simply attaching a screen print of this blog post may be sufficient.)

On the appellate side, take a look at Rule 68(M)(1)(d), which appears to be nearly identical to the Trial Court rule on this topic.

Delivery by Doxpop: FAQ

 
We developed Delivery by Doxpop striving to make service as easy as it was before e-filing started but there are some circumstances we've learned of that as of right now we can't handle as smoothly as we'd like. 

So in this blog, we'll look at those situations and how to still utilize Deliver by Doxpop. Plus, we'll answer some frequent questions we've gotten as we've launched this new feature. 

What is actually sent when I select Delivery by Doxpop?

Initial filings: When filing a new case, the documents sent via the Delivery by Doxpop method you choose will be the file stamped version returned by the Clerk after the filing is accepted. The same version you receive back via the "filing accepted" email from the e-file manager. 

Subsequent filings: When filing in an existing case, the documents sent via the Delivery by Doxpop method you choose are the exact same document you uploaded. We immediately send those documents for processing. This is very similiar to the e-service that is send on subsequent filings.

Service Only Filings: Just like the e-service and subsequent filings, the documents sent via the Delivery by Doxpop method you choose are the exact same document you uploaded.

How can I use Delivery by Doxpop to serve documents that need a clerk, or judge signature, or when I need to wait for information from the court, such as a court date, to include in the service?

As mentioned in the details in the first question we can not automatically send version of documents that come for the clerk or court. Those documents are send outside the e-file system and therefore at this time we do not have access to them. That does not mean you can't use Delivery by Doxpop, it just means a small extra step once you have those documents or information from the clerk.

Sheriffs Service (new case): If you intend to use Delivery by Doxpop to send civil process service via the sheriff for your filing but need to wait on court documents/information there are just a few steps to follow.

• In your initial filing make sure to add the optional $28 sheriff service fee to one document so the clerk can collect that fee for the case.
• Do not select Delivery by Doxpop at this time for any parties that you will need additional information from the court. 
• Submit your new case filing
• Once the new case is accepted and you have received the signed documents or information to include in the served documents you will want to do a 'service only' filing on the case. 
• Pull up the case like you typically would to e-file into. 
• Above the Case Parties section use the button to "Switch to Service Only"
• 
• In the Envelope Contents section choose the files you want to send and complete the required fields and save. Note: that while filing type is required, it is not sent with the service information so you can just choose motion here.
• In the Contacts to E-Serve at least one service contact must be selected. This can be your own firm/attorney. 
• In the Delivery by Doxpop section, you can select the sheriff service for the parties you wish to service. 
• Then just complete the required payment account and checklist and submit your service only envelope. This will send the documents you uploaded for Delivery by Doxpop. 

Certified Mail or First Class (new or existing cases): If you intend to use Delivery by Doxpop to send service via Certified or First Class mail for your filing but need to wait on court documents/information there are just a few steps to follow.

• Do not select Delivery by Doxpop at the time of filing to the court for any parties that you will need additional information from the court. 
• Submit your filing as you normally would. 
• Once the filing is accepted and you have received the needed signed documents or information to include in the documents you wish to serve, you will want to do a 'service only' filing on the case. 
• Pull up the case like you typically would to e-file into. 
• Above the Case Parties section use the button to "Switch to Service Only"
• 
• In the Envelope Contents section choose the files you want to send and complete the required fields and save. Note: that while filing type is required, it is not sent with the service information so you can just choose motion here.
• In the Contacts to E-Serve at least one service contact must be selected. This can be your own firm/attorney. 
• In the Delivery by Doxpop section, you can select the service information for the parties you wish to send physical service to. 
• Then just complete the required payment account and checklist and submit your service only envelope. This will send the documents you uploaded for Delivery by Doxpop. 

Sheriff's Service (existing case): If you intend to use Delivery by Doxpop to send service via the sheriff for a case that already exists but need to wait on court documents/information just follow the steps for initial case. As long as the $28 sheriffs service court fee has been paid on the case through doxpop you can use a service only filing to send documents to the sheriff. 

What exactly does Doxpop send to the Sheriff?

Doxpop worked with several county civil process departments to built a packet that makes it easier on them to execute your service. We print and send the Sheriff's Department the following:

• Cover page for Sheriff including: the name and address for the Sheriff, the name and address of the filer, the clerk’s address, any delivery notes/instructions provided by user, and a brief description of the content, and proof of payment for the $28 sheriff's fee. 
•  An Affidavit of Service with as much filled as we know in advance for the Sheriff to complete and return to the Clerk.. 
• Three copies of the documents with separator sheets that denote what each copy is for. 

 Will my USPS service be mailed or postmarked the same day I filed?

The short answer: Yes, if you file before 5pm EST most mailings will be postmarked the same day but we can't guarantee that 100% of the time. 

The long answer: We can't guarantee the same day. Equipment can break down, Sudden demands can slow processing. All we can do is certify that we've put together a system that, if nothing goes wrong, will typically get your documents into the mail on the same day, and more importantly, that an irrevocable hand-off from you to that service has already occurred. 

We note the time of that hand-off in case there's ever any question about when that happened. Both you and Doxpop can tell the court that we are both making a good faith effort to get all postal envelopes into the hands of the USPS on the same day filing occurs. As it turns out, this isn't strictly required by the rules as the folks at the state interpret them. However, we feel more comfortable being able to tell you that it is unusual for a delay to occur.

Does this service meet the rules in regards to the mailing date I put on the Certificate of Issuance of Service?

Yes

We ran this service past several members of the State's E-Filing Business Steering Committee and we specifically asked about timing because we were concerned about whether it was safe for Doxpop filers to attach a Certificate of Issuance of Service to a document that certifies that you have mailed the document, when in fact, you've just handed off the document to the system that mails it for you.

Their answer was that it isn't a problem, because in practice, it is already implicitly understood that filers submit their documents to the court and then someone in the office puts them in the outbox to be mailed at the next opportunity. Therefore, they all interpreted the date on the Certificate of Issuance of Service to mean delivery was commenced "contemporaneously" with submission to the court. It means you started the process and certify that the "hand-off" to a third party agent for delivery happened. 

To make sure we're making a good-faith effort to follow both the spirit and the letter of the rule in this regard, we've written our program to hand off delivery to our printing/mailing service before submitting the filing to the court. It's a matter of milliseconds, but we really do that hand-off first.

So the answer from that perspective is that handing it off to Doxpop for processing is the equivalent of handing it to the person who runs envelopes down to the mailroom or nearest mailbox under your existing procedures.

 

 

Delivery by Doxpop makes service as easy as it used to be.

Update: The pilot was completed with resounding success in late August, and Delivery by Doxpop is now available statewide.

On Tuesday, July 28th, Doxpop will release a pilot of our Delivery by Doxpop service in Wayne, Madison, and Hamilton counties.

This means that when you are e-filing on a case in one of these counties, you will see a new section in both the initial and subsequent filing page labeled "Delivery by Doxpop". We think you will want to start using it immediately. Here is why:


If you are doing a subsequent filing and one of the parties can't be served via e-service, you can use Delivery by Doxpop to initiate service via first-class postal mail with as few as three mouse clicks- A huge savings in labor. Take a look at this short video (2:33)  to see how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUl_hSlGtfA


If you are doing an initial filing and want to provide service via Sheriff's Service, Delivery by Doxpop lets you initiate that in less than a minute during the e-filing process. Doxpop will print three copies of the required documents, and deliver them to the Sheriff you specify along with a cover sheet providing personal and mail delivery addresses. Take a look at this short demonstration (3:29) of how this service works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sfto9p9U_c


If you are doing an initial filing and want to provide Certified Mail Service,  you can do that with a few mouse clicks during the e-filing process using Delivery by Doxpop. Doxpop will print the required documents, and send them via Certified Mail for you. When the recipient signs for the documents, you will receive an image of the signed receipt. we've made a brief video (2:40) that shows how this works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSN3Mzd_1qU


Finally, it is important to be able to track the progress of delivery and download your return receipt to prove delivery occurred. This video (3:00) shows you how to quickly get to USPS tracking and how to download your return:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGtxmVzdr3Q


There is more to this feature than you see in the videos! We have kept the videos short so you can see how simple the typical service process is. However, that doesn't mean you don't have full control over the process. Some of the additional features you may end up using are:

• Specifying a subset of documents in an envelope for service.
• Changing the order in which documents are printed.
• Changing any of the addresses used for service.
• providing service for any number of parties.
• Specifying more than one type of service for a single recipient: eg: Both first-class and certified.

Doxpop's goal is to eliminate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, so you can focus on great legal work. Delivery by Doxpop is a significant step along that path.