Electronic court filing (ECF), or e-filing, is the automated transmission of legal documents from an attorney, party or self-represented litigant to a court, from a court to an attorney, and from an attorney or other user to another attorney or other user of legal documents.

Technical standards

The LegalXML Electronic Court Filing Technical Committee, a subcommittee of OASIS

OASIS (organization)

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards is a global consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business and web service standards...

, with members representing both public and private sector organizations, has developed technical specifications that provide for standardization of the following for electronic filing of court documents:

• Message Structures
• Metadata
  Metadata
  The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
  
  

These XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

-based standards support the implementation of electronic court filing but they do not define court policies. In 2003, the National Center for State Courts

National Center for State Courts

The National Center for State Courts is a non-profit organization charged with improving judicial administration in the United States and around the world...

 (NCSC) published Standards for Electronic Filing Processes (Technical and Business Approaches).

In the summer of 2009, the NCSC commenced a survey of the usage of e-filing in state courts across the country, including U.S. Territories. The survey responses were published in the 2009 NCSC Court E-filing Survey.

Release history

• LegalXML:
• ECF 1.0: March 22, 2000
• ECF 1.1: July 7, 2002
• ECF 3.0: November 11, 2005
  • ECF 3.01: April 25, 2006
• ECF 3.1: December 4, 2007
• ECF 4.0: October 8, 2008

LegalXML

• Collaboration on nonproprietary standards for the legal community
• Merged with OASIS in March 2002.

ECF 1.1

This version was approved by the NCSC Joint Technology Committee as a recommended standard in 2002.

ECF 3.0

• Leverage new and emerging standards
  • Volcabularies
    • GJXDM
    • UBL
  • Web services
    • W3C
    • OASIS
    • WS-I
• Use of XML schemas rather than DTD
  Document Type Definition
  Document Type Definition is a set of markup declarations that define a document type for SGML-family markup languages...
  
  
• Supports Standards for Electronic Filing Processes (Technical and Business Approaches) approved in 2003.

Implementation assistance

In an effort to promote implementation of the ECF 4.0 specification, the OASIS LegalXML ECF committee developed a "quick start guide" the 7 Steps to Electronic Filing with Electronic Court Filing 4.0. The guide provides information on the following topics:

• Standardize integration methods in your e-Filing implementation with XML
• Integrate with any potential e-Filing Service Provider or share e-Filing data between systems or partners
• Setup a single method of processing data related to e-Filing
• Find out how to implement legal service in your e-Filing application

The LegalXML Electronic Court Filing Technical Committee serves as the primary source of documentation and support.

See also

• OASIS
  OASIS (organization)
  The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards is a global consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business and web service standards...
  
  
• GJXDM
  GJXDM
  The Global Justice XML Data Model is a data reference model for the exchange of information within the justice and public safety communities...
  
  , the Global Justice XML Data Model
• National Information Exchange Model
  National Information Exchange Model
  The National Information Exchange Model is an XML-based information exchange framework from the United States. NIEM represents a collaborative partnership of agencies and organizations across all levels of government and with private industry...
  
   (NIEM)
• Electronic Filing System
  Electronic Filing System
  The Electronic Filing System is the Singapore Judiciary's electronic platform for filing and service of documents within the litigation process. In addition, it provides the registries of the Supreme Court and the Subordinate Courts with an electronic registry and workflow system; and an...
  
   (Singapore)
• National Center for State Courts
  National Center for State Courts
  The National Center for State Courts is a non-profit organization charged with improving judicial administration in the United States and around the world...