The New Jersey Supreme Court has approved a two-phase plan that will eventually require attorneys to file all pleadings and other documents electronically in civil actions commenced in the Special Civil Part (i.e., actions where the amount in controversy is $15,000 or less, commonly referred to as DC docket-type cases). The Judiciary has been operating the Judiciary Electronic Filing/Imaging System (JEFIS) as a voluntary e-filing program statewide since November 2000. Members of the bar have been extremely helpful in the creation of the program and currently 54% of the nearly 400,000 complaints filed annually in DC docket-type cases are being filed electronically. The Judiciary’s experience with JEFIS has shown that documents filed electronically can be processed much more efficiently and accurately than paper documents and given the recent rapid increase in the number of DC filings, coupled with the constraints of the current State budget, it is clear that steps must be taken to increase electronic filings and decrease the scanning of paper documents if the current level of efficiency is to be maintained in the Special Civil Part.
Phase One – First Year
