eFiling

Tybera Development Group’s eFlex product has been selected as the electronic filing program for the Kansas Judicial Branch. The Douglas County District Court was selected as one of the pilot courts for the implementation of e-filing for the Kansas Judicial Branch. The court began accepting filings from a limited number of users for civil case types on March 11, 2013.

Effective January 5, 2015, all licensed attorneys are required to utilize the Kansas Courts Electronic Filing System when filing all new cases and documents within new or existing cases with the Douglas County District Court. The system is only open to attorneys. Pro se litigants must continue using conventional methods when filing pleadings with the court.

An attorney in my office is trying to obtain the case history for a case in which she is legal counsel. However, the e-filing system is denying the request saying she “must be a participant on this case in order to see the full case history?

In order for you to see cases in “My Cases” you must be the attorney of record in the Case Management system at the court. Go to the “My Cases” screen, enter the case information in the boxes at the top and click “history.” This should allow you to see the case.

Can all the attorneys within a law firm use just one email address?

When the attorneys first sign up for an account, they must enter the primary email address as the address that is currently on file with attorney registration for verification purposes. However, after their account has been approved, the attorneys can modify the email address to whatever email they desire. This will be the email address that receives all of the notifications from the eFiling system.

Can one use an electronic withdrawal from a checking account to pay the filing fees?

Yes. When the attorney is setting up the wallet account, they can select to use a checking account to pay for the filings fees.

Do all scanned documents need to show the attorney's signatures?

Administrative Order 268 does address the issue of attorney signatures. On documents submitted through the eFiling system, the signatures can be the electronic signature of /s/ and the typed name of the attorney.

It appears that you can only view a case and the documents associated with that case if you are using the login for an attorney on that case. For instance, if you are an attorney in a firm that has more than one attorney and you are not the attorney who signed the petition, you cannot view that case unless you file an entry of appearance. Many firms have several attorneys who might need to view the same case, and have many cases, so the filing of a separate entry of appearance for each attorney in the firm would create a lot of extra work, both for the firm and the people managing the e-filings. Is there any possibility that this could be changed?  

At the current time this is the only option. However, this has been requested for the next phase of efiling.

I am attempting to view a case through the eFiling system. However, I was never an attorney of record on the case. How can I get access to the case through eFiling?

The efiling system is designed for the attorneys who are attorneys of record in the case to have access to the case filings. If you are not an attorney of record on the case, then you would need to access the case filing as the public does using the public access computers in our office, via Amicus or via the Kansas Public Access website.

I was not presented any payment options when filing a submission that required payment. Why did I not get charged?

You do not have a wallet account set-up for this user. One or two things can happen. Either another person from the law firm can add him to their wallet account by assigning him or he can create his own wallet account. If he decides to create his own wallet account, let OJA know and they will change his role to attorney/Financial administrator so that he can be in a position to set it up.

I am trying to file two Chapter 60 garnishments. In Chapter 60, a garnishment filing fee is $20, but the efiling website is only charging me $25 total for the two garnishments when it should be charging me $40. My filing keeps getting rejected for incorrect filing fee, but I have no control over the filing fee amount and therefore no way to fix this problem.

You need to select the document type of MOT: Garnishment Chapter 60. Then the correct fee will be assessed.

We appear in person at an answer date with a defendant who will be agreeing to judgment. We have an agreed journal entry that the defendant signs. However, we can't get a signed journal entry back to Word format to submit as a proposed order. What is the process for submitting a proposed order where the parties have signed to indicate agreement?

There is a section in the Administrative Order 268 that does address the issue of multiple signatures. Since the document must be submitted in an .rtf, .doc, or .docx format, the option of submitted scanned images of the signatures is really not an option. Section E. 3. b addresses this issue.

How do I pay a fee for filing a Pro Hac Vice?

If you select the document Category of Motion, then the Document Type of MOT: Pro Hac Vice it will bring up the correct filing fee.

What are the transaction fees associated with eFiling?

If paying with a credit card, the fees are 4% of the amount due. If paying with a checking account, there is a $2.00 flat fee assessed.

In the training session, it was conveyed that the system would generate Civil summons for chapter 60 and Chapter 61 cases. However, when I attempted to add a summons to the submission, nothing happened. Any ideas?

The system will generate for the summons for you. On the document upload screen select the Document Category of Pleading. Then select the Document Type of PLE: Summons. Type a Document Title. You will notice that the Browse button is grayed out, so you can't upload your own document. If you then select the Add button, another screen will open that will walk you through the process of creating the summons, by having you select whether the summons is a Chapter 60 or Chapter 61, etc.

I attempted to efile something to the Appellate court, but it was rejected. Why?

The efiling system for the Appellate court is currently in a different stage than the District Court. Filing to the Appellate court is by invitation only at this time. The only cases that are currently being efiled are Criminal cases involving the Appellate Defender's office, Sedgwick County DA, Johnson County DA, and Shawnee County DA. Attorneys are only able to access cases through the efiling system if a document has been efiled on that particular case. If this case was not initiated as an efiled case, then the Appellate court is not accepting efiled submissions for that case and therefore, will not be accessible through the efiling system.

Is there a page limit?

No, there is no page limit. There is a total document size limit of 10 MB in all counties except Douglas County. The maximum size restriction in Douglas County is 3 MB.

I am already signed up for efiling in Johnson County. Why can I not file in the other eFiling counties?

Johnson County District Court maintains an electronic filing system that is separate from Kansas Courts e-Filing. You need to contact the Johnson County District Court directly to gain access to it. To log into the Kansas Courts e-Filing system you go here: https://filer.kscourts.org/.

I e-filed a document in error. Can the court clerk’s office reject or delete the filing?

Per Kansas eCourts Rule 23, upon receipt of a document submitted to a district court using the Kansas Court eFiling System, a clerk of the district court is authorized to reject the document only for the following reasons:

• the document is illegible or in a format that prevents it from being opened;
• the document does not leave a margin sufficient to affix a file stamp, as required by Rule 111;
• the document does not have the correct county designation, case number, or case caption; or
• the applicable fee has not been paid or no poverty affidavit is submitted with the document or already on file in the case.

Once a filing is approved, it is part of court record and cannot be deleted.

Do attorneys receive, or can they download electronically file-stamped copy of pleadings after they've been e-filed?  In the Missouri e-filing system, we can obtain electronically file-stamped copies for our files.

Kansas Attorneys of record can download electronically file-stamped copies of pleadings after they have been e-filed. They receive a notice of electronic filing but they must log into the system to download the documents.

I am an out of state attorney wishing to efile on a case in Kansas. Can I do so?

According to Administrative Order 268, you must be a Kansas Supreme Court registered attorney before you can be approved for an efiling account. The Kansas attorney of record who will be sponsoring you can efile on your behalf.

I filed my first case on the e-filing system last month. We're doing the billing now and I need to include the filing fee on the client's invoice. Does the system send out receipts for payment or can you tell me where to find it?

Log in here: https://filer.kscourts.org/. Click on Cases then the drop down should show you filing charges. You can sort by month.

Is there a way we can be notified by email if the system is down?

OJA does have a way to broadcast messages to users when the system is scheduled to be down or there is an announcement. This currently means sending out a mass e-mail through the Efiling system. However, if there is an incident where we cannot access the efiling system, we can't send out this notice. We are working with the vendor and IT staff to find an alternative way to notify users when the system is down.

How did the Document Type list get put together?

There were two committees who worked on putting this list of documents together. The first committee consisted of a group of District Court Clerks who compiled a list of all the documents they receive in their office. Next, a committee of Judges, Attorneys, and Court of Appeals Judges worked at categorizing and narrowing down the list to what you see today.

I continue to receive a “timed out” error when attempting to add a case to the My Cases.

Are you attempting to submit a filing or are you attempting to add a case to your list of cases under My Cases? The cases will not appear under the My Cases button until you have efiled something. Once you have efiled a document and the clerk has approved the document, the switch in the system is flipped to display that particular case under the My Cases button.