Fifth group of counties to join eCourts system in July

Eleven counties in Western North Carolina will be the next group to join the state’s expanding eCourts judicial administration system.

The changeover will come July 22 for Buncombe, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Polk, Swain, and Transylvania counties, says a memo from Ryan S. Boyce, director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, posted on the North Carolina Judicial Branch‘s website.

The key parts of the system are eFiling (also known as File & Serve), which allows electronic filing of documents with the courts, and Portal, which allows access to court records.

Under the General Rules of Practice, attorneys will be required to file documents electronically beginning July 22.

To prepare for the transition, new users are urged to create eFiling accounts before the transition date. For law firms and solo practitioners, one person should set up an account for the firm and then invite attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants and other users to set up individual accounts, the memo says. Solo practitioners can serve as the administrator of their firm’s account.

For Portal accounts, attorneys should register for elevated access, which will allow them to view nonpublic information in cases for which they are the attorney of record.

Attorneys also should confirm an address of record with the North Carolina State Bar for service under Rule 5 of the Rules of Civil Procedure. The eCourts system has certain notification features that rely on the address of record information imported from the bar’s Court Service Information registry.

Training on the system is available through:

• User guides, tutorials, FAQs and other initial resources: https://www.nccourts.gov/ecourts
• Live, in-person and online eFiling training: https://survey-external.nccourts.org/NZ22JJ17LR57
• Online Portal training: https://survey-external.nccourts.org/ZF53OC27YM62
• Review of changes to the General Rules of Practice related to digital case management: https://www.nccourts.gov/courts/supreme-court/court-rules/general-rules-of-practice-for-the-superior-and-district-courts

Training for eFiling and Portal is approved for continuing legal education credit, the memo says. Training also is open to anyone regardless of whether his or her home county has made the transition to eCourts.