Not all case types can be E-Filed. Here are the exceptions.

This blog post was born of a D'oh! moment after a customer asked why she couldn't e-file on a PO (Protection Order) case and I blithely assured her that Doxpop has no problem with e-filing on confidential cases.

The problem is that although confidential cases aren't a problem for Doxpop, PO cases in particular are not included in the e-filing rollout yet for any counties. This probably has something to do with the conflict between Indiana rules, which make PO cases public, and a Federal rule which prohibits posting information on the Internet which might identify the plaintiff in a PO case.

In addition, e-filing is not available for any juvenile cases in Johnson Madison and Marion counties. This is probably due to the fact that the Quest case management system is not quite ready for e-filing yet, and these counties use Quest for their juvenile cases.

I'm not aware of any other exceptions, but please send email or post a comment if I'm wrong.

Click here to see the State Court Administration's official documentation on this question.

Wayne County Court Information will contain duplicates for a few days... Here's why:

Yesterday, (10/15) Wayne County had to do a restore of their court system using a backup created Sunday. This means information entered on their system after Sunday is missing on their end and will need to be entered manually.

Because Doxpop maintains a real-time mirror of the Wayne County system, we can act as a resource to them while they re-enter the information. However, that means that during their recovery process some information will show up twice- We'll have the data we preserved originally, and then the new entry made on their end.

There will not be any information missing, but it will look a little weird for a couple of days. When the restore is complete on the county end, we'll re-synchronize with their system to eliminate the duplicated information.

Acting as a resource to provide continuity during data recovery efforts is a service Doxpop can provide as a partner to the counties we work with, so although we're not enjoying watching our friends scramble to re-enter their information, we are happy to help. Please be patient with the folks at Wayne County over the next couple of days as they work to restore order!

The Recorder's office in Wayne County is not affected by this, and of course no other counties are affected. If you have any questions, give us a call!

Change to payment procedure for Sheriff's civil process in Shelby County

We just learned that Sheriff's civil process fees in Shelby County must now be paid directly to the Sheriff rather than via the e-filing system.

That means when you e-file a document that you want the Shelby County Sheriff to serve, you must supply the Sheriff with three copies of the document accompanied by the payment of $25. Attorney's offices may pay using a business checking account. Individuals must pay via cash, certified check, or money order. Personal checks are not an acceptable form of payment.

This new information has been added to our previous post containing a complete list of e-filing counties and their procedures for Sheriff's service:

http://blog.doxpop.com/2016/07/e-filing-paying-sheriff-for-civil.html

E-Filing will be required for NEW case filings in Hamilton County beginning in 2017

So far, when Counties have made E-Filing "mandatory", it has only been for subsequent filings, meaning any filing on a case that already exists. Attorneys have been allowed to initiate new cases by filing on paper.

Starting on January 1, 2017, attorneys will be required to complete initial filings electronically in Hamilton Circuit & Superior Courts in the following case types:

AD – Adoption
CB – Foreign Judgment
CC – Civil Collection
CT – Civil Tort
DC* – Domestic Relations with Children
DN* – Domestic Relations without Children
EM – Estate, Miscellaneous
ES – Estate, Supervised
EU – Estate, Unsupervised
GU – Guardianship
JP – Juvenile Paternity
MF – Mortgage Foreclosure
MH – Mental Health
MI – Miscellaneous Civil
PC – Post-Conviction Relief
PL – Civil Plenary
RS – Reciprocal Support
SC – Small Claim
TP* – Verified Petition for Issuance of a Tax Deed
TR – Trust
TS* – Application for Judgment in a Tax Sale
XP – Expungement
(*The DC, DN, TP and TS case types are new, and will be added on 1/1/17) 

Remember that when you e-file a new case, you are responsible for service. (The clerk will not longer handle certified mail or hand the document off to the Sheriff for you.) If you are unsure of the rules for initiating a case, give us a call, and we'll be happy to talk you through it over the phone or come do a training session at your office to get you up to speed.

Marion County Courts begin E-Filing... but not the Township Courts.

Marion County Circuit and Superior courts began e-filing on all cases except juvenile last Friday (10/28.) A couple of users have inquired about whether the Marion County Township Courts are included. They are not.

In addition, we have learned that Marion is one of the counties where payments to the Sheriff for civil process (service) must be made directly to the Sheriff when the document is delivered rather than paid via the e-filing system.

This has been noted on our list of counties and how they handle sheriff's civil process payments.

Doxpop is expanding the Customer Support Team

We are currently seeking a Customer Service Representative to join our amazing Customer Support Team! Read more details about the position and how to apply here: https://www.doxpop.com/us/careers/

New: Quickly find Easements in Land Records

In order to respond to a request from some of our newer users, we've broken out documents that are or relate directly to Easements into their own document type. These documents were generally located under Miscellaneous in the past, and this change should make them easier to locate.

To see all of the document type options, visit our Advanced Search in the "recorded documents" or "register of deeds" tab and select the drop-down menu for Document Type. This will display all of our searchable document types.

For more help with Advanced Search, visit our help section or contact us.

Validation date added to Recorder (IN) and Register of Deeds (MI) records.

Doxpop has just added a "validation time" for Recorder and Register of Deeds offices. This is similar to what many offices call their "effective date". Here's how it works:

The validation time for each county office is the recording time of the most recent document that has been verified. This means all documents recorded at the same office before that time have been completely indexed and verified.

This works because the indexing system used by all Recorders and Registers that send their information to Doxpop is designed to ensure that documents are indexed and verified in the order they are received. The validation time allows researchers put the appropriate effective date on research they do through Doxpop.

• When selecting a single-county region for any document search, you will find the validation time for the county displayed under the region box. 

• When viewing the index details for any document, you will find the validation time for the source county of that document in the top left corner, next to the county name.

Here's an example:

If you have any questions about validation times, please feel free to give us a call or email.

Did e-filing just become mandatory in your county? Tips for getting started quickly...

This week, e-filing becomes mandatory for all filings on existing cases in Clark, Shelby, Harrison, Madison, Henry, Floyd and Hendricks County Courts.

If you are feeling unprepared, we can help.

First, you'll need to get your e-filing account set up correctly. At a minimum this means you need to have:

• One or more E-Filing Users
• One or more Attorney records.
• A service contact record for each attorney in the firm
• A credit card entered to pay any filing fees incurred.

The initial account setup is the most challenging part of e-filing, so if any of the components listed above are missing, we invite you to call us for help in this portion of the process. It's much easier to work on this together before you begin than to go back and correct problems. Give us a call at 866-369-7671 during office hours and we'll walk you through this part. We promise that a friendly and patient person will answer your call.

If you have looked at your e-filing account administration page and all of the components listed above are in place, you are ready to begin. It may help to briefly review our videos demonstrating a filing on an existing case and filing a new case:

Of course, you should always feel free to give us a call if you'd like someone on the phone to walk you through the process the first couple of times. We are happy to help. 

Call us at 866-369-7671.

E-Filing: Restrictions on document dimensions removed. (But you still need to use Letter size!)

Previously, Doxpop rejected documents larger than 8-1/2 X 11 inches to prevent filings that don't conform to the requirements of Indiana Administrative Rule 11.

Now, we have learned that the clerks will not reject any filing due to size, so for now, we have removed the rejection based on size and in the coming weeks will be replacing it with a warning so you will know if you might be filing a non-confirming document, but are not blocked from doing so.

Why would we want to allow non-conforming documents through? A couple of good reasons:

• Documents that are just a tiny bit too large due to skewed scanning don't really present a big problem to the courts, so within reasonable limits "close enough" applies.

• For Trial Courts. AR 11 allows larger documents to be attached as exhibits. This includes wills created before 1/1/1992.